How the Real Players Do It; or Lost in New Jersey

Thursday, Ian and I went to the PGA championship at Baltusrol (in the ritzy suburbs of northern New Jersey).  It was fun, but hot and tiring.

Baltusrol is holding like it's 20th major competition, including, I think the film that was on a loop on the bus said, the first PGA back in 1916.  Jack Nicklaus won 2 US Opens there, which is enough to give the place the imprimatur of class.

We got out of the house at 6:30, having been warned the Google Maps 2 hour 15 minute ride was many minutes more due to traffic.  I cut across New Jersey on 46 to 31 (if you know this track), and came to a crashing halt (see red on the Google map) as we merged onto 78.  It cleared some, but it was heavy from there all the way to the parking lot.

Half the fun of all this is parking, then shuttling to the course.  We parked in south Jersey and shuttled to the course, which was "only" 20 minutes going -- two loops of the film on the nice, air conditioned (a big plus going back) coach bus.

We first made our way to the signature hole, #4, a par 3 over water, with a stone wall holding up the green (and in play).  This pic should give you the impression.

You can see the flag (just over the TV guy in blue's head) is close to the wall and water.  Jason Day, for one, just barely cleared it on his shot in.  He made the putt for birdie.

We watched like 6 groups come through, finishing with the group with Day, Phil, and Rory.  Ian hates Rory; I like Phil.  I think he kind of likes Day, but he's more of a Fowler, Thomas, DJ kind of guy.

We followed that group up five, then six, where Phil, putting first, made his putt and the other two, with easier putts, missed.  Surprising.

It was lunch time and we went for merchandise and food.

If you've never been to one of these (Ian and I went to the President's Cup 3 years ago in Columbus), the merchandise tent is huge.  Yes, probably 300 feet by 60 -- essentially a football field -- with more shirts, caps, towels, etc, saying "PGA Baltusrol" with either the trophy (the Wanamaker Cup) or the Baltusrol logo (two yellow wings with a circled B in the middle) than you can imagine.  Shirts by Polo, UnderArmor, Cutter and Buck, Nike, Adidas, and Greg Norman (I'm probably missing some).  I spent more on merchandise than I did on tickets to the event.

Then we tried to follow Jordan Spieth's group.   If you could get near them.  Here's one shot of his group on the green --

If you can't tell, there was quite a crowd around them, so we couldn't get very close.  So, we waited two groups to follow Dustin Johnson (DJ), who rewarded us by making back-to-back bogeys and generally looking around the greens like a man who had no clue.  On the 6th hole, he hit it long, over the green, not ten feet from where we were standing on a path.  As he stood over it, and I was watching him, a cart came through the crowd and ran onto one of my feet!  I said "ouch!" fairly loud, then he drove on and drove over the other one!!!  No one in the cart even said a word -- no "sorry," nothing.  Ian said the woman in the back looked down and saw it sitting on my foot, but didn't say a word!!!  I survived, but that was more fun than I hoped for.

Then came the real excitement of the day.  Ian's phone, which has its issues, was dead, so he rented a charging block from a tent along 17.  Cost him $10.  But he couldn't get it to work right.  So, he had no phone (this is important in a moment).  When we decided after following Spieth (again) through 12 (where Bubba Watson, playing with Spieth, hit his tee shot to 18 inches and then missed the putt!!!) and we decided it was after 4 o'clock, we were tired, had seen the course, etc.  So, we decided to head home.  I said I would meet him at the gate (there was only one for the hoi polloi) & he could go to the booth, return the block, etc.   I thought he might stay and find another charger to charge up enough to get to the car.

Forty-five minutes of waiting by the gate later...

Meanwhile, there was this ice cream stand.

I was told these are popular with the ten-year-old crowd.  "You must be young of heart."  Okay, let's go with that.

Finally, I see Ian, who is outside the gate (!!!) and we walk the half mile or so to the bus (I'm now up to 19,000 steps for the day -- my heart is twice as healthy this day as the recommended steps), with him telling me how long he waited on me, and went to the bus stop, etc.  I tell him that I was where I told him to meet me while he was wandering around -- I wasn't leaving the grounds without him (you couldn't come back in).  Ah, well, I found him.

And, for the final indignity: the ride back on the bus took over an hour!  Google maps showed red; the guy in front of me said they were taking a route 20 minutes longer than the optimal one.  Of course, the busses were surely assigned a route and they weren't supposed to deviate from it.

Then we made the almost 3 hour ride home -- it was 10:30 before we got home, making it a 16 hour day (is my math right?)

It was fun.  It's great to see people play the way those guys play -- they hit the ball so long and pure, and they putt so great.  They make 30, 40 footers like it's nothing, and they are doing it on greens they have only played a day or two.  It's a mystery.

Till another "vacation"...