Thursday Son Major and I manned the thru board for hole 11. We worked from 6:45 to 12:15. We got to see the entire morning round play the hole. 11 is a par three so we were able to see the tee and the green play. We developed a system that took the least amount of time so we got in the max amount of watching. The rest of the early afternoon we planted ourselves at the green on hole six, a 515 yard par 4. We wanted to see some long shots into the green.
Yesterday, we slept in, had breakfast and headed out to the course. After watching a few shots on the way, we found seats in the bleachers on hole 3, another par 3 and watched almost the entire afternoon round from there. 3 is a tough downhill par three, 195 yards into the wind. The green is severely sloped and not too deep. We only saw two birdies while we were there and saw two double bogies and a triple. Great day.
One of the most impressive things about this U.S. Open is the transportation setup. Most of the crowd arrives at Qualcomm Stadium via trolley or car. Then they’re shuttled to the course via bus, about a thirty minute trip. The process is reversed for the trip back. What’s impressive is the way that operation is executed. At each place there are cattle-chutes set up that funnel the crowd to about a dozen spots where busses are waiting to pick up passengers to shuttle them to the next stop. To give you an idea of how good they are, we left the course and were funneled to the “avenue” to the busses. The walkway was about 25 feet wide and maybe an eight of a mile long and was solid with people walking. We walked constantly and steadily through the various mazes and never stopped until we were on the bus. We were saying to each other, “I bet we’ll be on the bus in ten minutes or so.” It was just about five. Very impressive!
© 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.
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