The Farmers Insurance Open this year at Torrey Pines Golf Course, La Jolla, featured its best field (19 of the top 30 in FedEx standings), the 2019 debut of Tiger Woods on the tour, and what one TV commentator called “spectacular weather.” I concur. Best weather throughout the tournament in the seven years I’ve been a marshal.
This year’s tournament didn’t have the excitement of the extended playoff last year. World #1 Justin Rose took the lead in the second round and came to the final hole with a two-shot advantage over Adam Scott. Each birdied the hole, so Rose won by two. His total of 267, 21 under par, was a tournament record. Rains the previous week made the rough very thick, but also made the greens somewhat soft and better able to hold an approach shot.
Tiger was back at Torrey, where he has won various tournaments nine times, for a second year following an absence of a few years. Crowds following him were the largest Thursday-Saturday and, if smaller than that with the leaders on Sunday, not by much. He saved his best for the final round, shooting five birdies for a score of 67. Overall, he finished 11 shots behind Rose, tied for 20th.
With high temperatures around 70 and bright sunshine throughout, the telecast of the tournament was also an advertisement for San Diego. In addition to the visuals provided by the Goodyear Blimp, CBS added video snippets of local scenes and announcer Jim Nantz piled on with praise for the region. On the first of my three seemingly interminable drives back from La Jolla to Fallbrook during rush hour (Wednesday), Nantz was interviewed on a local sports talk show and he basically said then that he was going to talk a lot about how much he liked San Diego.
Wednesday is the pro-am tournament and it is essentially the toughest single day of the year for me. This year, I was there from pre-dawn to post-sunset and, to do that from 40 miles away on a weekday, meant I left at 4:45 am and got home after 7 pm. At the course, I met the 14 marshals, both returning and new, assigned to 9 South, and assigned them positions for the day.
Nine South, which plays 608-615 yards depending on where they place the tee markers, is a gentle monster. For professional golfers, especially, it’s a gentle par five. In terms of average score, players hit under par and on that basis it’s one of the easiest holes on the course. For a hole captain walking up and down the 600 yards, checking in with marshals assigned to the elevated tee area, the first landing area, second landing area, and the green, it’s a monster.
According to the Health app on my iPhone, I walked 6.7 miles, taking 17,258 steps and climbing 15 floors, last Wednesday. The mileage total meant I had walked the equivalence of the length of the hole about 20 times. Over the other four days, I spent less time moving about. It was better for me to assist at the first landing area, where maybe two dozen golfers hit drives over a fence into a concession area. When that happened, we had to move people away from the ball or the point at which it had crossed over the fence to permit the golfer to hit, usually after a free drop.
My walking distances for Thursday-Sunday were between 2.8 and 3.4 miles. Totals for the five days were 19.4 miles walked, taking 49,767 steps and climbing 46 floors. I also estimate that of the approximately 40 hours I spent on the course over the five days, I stood or walked for perhaps a total of 39 of them. Times to sit were very brief. When I got home each night, I was tired.
On the final round, 9 South featured what some called the shot of the day. Hideki Matsuyama hit his drive into a sand trap on the right. His ball was about 280 yards short of the green. As he lined up to hit, TV commentator Sir Nick Faldo advised viewers, “Don’t try this at home!”
Matsuyama’s three-wood shot out of the sand landed on the green, less than 20 feet from the hole. He missed the eagle putt, but made his birdie easily.
All the images here were captured off telecasts. While spectators can take photos with phones, not cameras, during the tournament, marshals cannot, or at least are not supposed to.
I had recorded the telecasts of the tournament and went through them Monday and Tuesday to see if any of my marshals could be seen. There were a few, so I took screenshots and sent copies to them. I also looked for myself. And the picture here was the closest I found. (My uniform is predetermined: black pants, provided polo, wide-brim hat, white [only white] lower sleeves.) Last year was even worse, as I only appeared in a shot from the blimp. Only I would have known I was in it, just like this year. Nothing since has quite matched what happened in my second tournament (2014), which you can see below.
