Being Your Own Wing Man

I was confused when the phone rang in my hotel room at 5:45 am. It wasn't just the hour -- I'd set my blackberry alarm for 5:45 -- but my wake up call wasn't scheduled until 6:00 (just in case). Had the blackberry and the hotel phone traded shifts during the night?

No the sound of the phone ringing was my wing man Steve calling to bow out of going to Bethpage, and as I hung up, my blackberry started beeping right on cue.

Being my own wing man isn't new for me. In the free time I have these days I spend a good chunk of it on my own. I'm a social person, but I tend to leave my options open for my free time (translation: don't get around to making plans), and mini-adventures like squeezing in a twilight nine are not planned in advance. Going to the US Open today was a notable exception.

So while Steve would have been good company, I was comfortable with the task of tackling Bethpage on my own. He was going to drive so he gave me the instructions for getting to Ronkonkoma (no, not a made up name) to catch the Long Island Railroad to Farmingdale where a shuttle would take me to the tournament. Despite the last minute jockey switch, the logistics piece went smoothly and I relished the prospect of being away from my blackberry, a device which is forbidden on the grounds (though I saw many that had been smuggled in).

The weather was not promising. It was cool and cloudy and moist as I drove to Ronkonkoma (it's even fun to type it) and the rain took it up a notch as I boarded the train. I had decided to go only with my DryJoys rain suit as I didn't want to tote around an umbrella (which would have come in very handy), so I would be putting the gore-tex to the test.

Without a wing man, I interacted with other fans (and myself) more than if I didn't have one, which was kind of fun, and the people I met represented an interesting cross section of the US Open.

First I met a young professional looking couple from Colorado on the train and compared notes on golf courses in the Denver area, where Jen and I lived for 7 years.

Next I met three gritty young guys who were working the hospitality area. We were all shuttling between the tail end of lines for the buses trying to gauge which one we could get on without having to wait for the next batch. We were the last four crammed onto one of the buses and I asked them how they liked the work. They said it was a good job, but they were long, tough hours (washing dishes, hauling ice and cases of drinks, etc.) One of the three lamented his decision to go out last night and another's ankles were bothering him because of his old sneakers and none of them looked forward to working their shift for which they were already an hour late.
Upon arrival, I wanted to jump right into the golf since there wasn't likely to be a full day of it, but I'd rushed out of the hotel without breakfast, and knew I would need the energy. The concession was out of sausage egg sandwiches (which nearly every customer asked for) and I settled for an everything bagel with cream cheese and a water. I noshed the bagel on the fly and sucked the the cream cheese out of its foil packet like gogurt.

As I finished my lightning breakfast, I looked up and saw the MetLife Blimp (one ending to the sentence "you know you're at a big time sporting event when. . . ") and the crowd signalled Tiger approaching the first tee for his 8:06 am tee time. I scrambled up the grandstands around the 18the green to get a glimpse of Tiger, Padraig Harrington and Angel Cabrera teeing off. A glimpse is about all I got from my subprime vantage point but I did get to see the top of his follow through and hear the live crowd reaction. They introduced Padraig as the British Open champ, and I thought to myself with the cold wet weather, he probably thought he was playing in it today (a quip I couldn't resist sharing later).

When it comes to anything golf, and particularly the nexus of golf and bad weather I think of my Dad, who passed away six months ago today. Given the weather and the approaching father's day weekend I thought of him a lot. He loved playing and following golf, both the PGA and the LPGA, and one our last outings with him was going to the PGA tour stop in Central New York last October around my brother Jerry's 50th birthday.

Though spry until the last few years, this would have been a tough trek for him, but if he had been there slogging through the rain, he would have been looking for coffee and toughing it out without complaint, kind of like I did.

For me, part of the attraction of an event like this is the course itself. I'm a self-taught student of golf architecture, and though I don't know a lot about it, I appreciate great courses, and this is one of the greatest I've seen.

The course itself is probably worthy of its own installment in this online journal, and I wish I could have seen more of the holes actually played to get a better sense of it. The words and phrases that come to mind are "sprawling," "grand" and "stern test". This course is a brute. You often hear people talk about long golf courses, but Bethpage Black is not only long but big. The holes are spread out and even holes like 11 and 12, and 15 and 16 which run paralell to each other have ample space between them.

Visually, a number of the individual holes are among the most impressive I've seen. I'd say Augusta is a more impressive collection, but I think part of that is how Bethpage Black is laid out. The holes are much more spaced at Bethpage, and holes 1, 15, 16, 17 and 18 and the rest of the course are divided by a roadway.

The elevation changes are amplified by the dramatic bunkering, carved into sides of the many valleys and ridges which the course winds through and over. Ringed with unruly bronze fescue, these aren't frame the hole bunkers, in many cases these bunkers define the holes. Yet as larger than life the rest of the course is, the green complexes in many cases do not seem large by comparison, making for some small targets on some very big holes.

Word is the greens are relatively flat, but I really couldn't get a sense of that without seeing them played. So much for not saying anything about the architecture.

I did actually see a few of these impressive golf holes played after watching Tiger tee off. To avoid the meandering mass that followed him, I started walking backwards from 18 until I found the first players who'd teed off the 10th hole.

It took a while and I didn't see a group until all the way to 13 where I watched the 3rd and 2nd group (yes, in that order, the 3rd group had actually played through during a ruling with the 2nd). So I saw some approach shots into the 13 and then continued on to 12. I saw a few big name players go by (Furyk, Ogilvy, Stenson, Stricker), and a few nice shots, but nothing that really stood out.

The front nine paralells the holes I was walking on the back, so I could hear some of the Tiger induced cheers along the way. I lost my bearings on other players when my rain-soaked pairings sheet, which I ill-advisedly put on top of my head while I was in the portajohn (don't ask me what I was thinking), fell into the urinal.

So I decided to fly without my radar and ended up in a spot stealing some umbrella coverage from a couple of people at the 10th green. I thought I'd watch a few groups come through, including Tiger who was midway through the front nine, when play was suspended about 10 am.

Confusion ensued as the players and caddies (Rory Sabbatini walked by me) were hustled off to vans while clueless spectators (and a few clueless volunteers) emptied the grandstands and tried to figure out what to do.

I continued backtracking, figuring if I was going to get soaked, I should at least see the rest of the course. I timed my circuit to reach the 4th tee at 11 am, a previously arranged meet up time/spot with a colleague. I found out later we were both there and missed each other. Perhaps we were distracted by the knucklehead who was sliding down the mud-slicked hill bordering the fourth tee in his rain suit.

I passed a lot of people who were walking the course, and while not pouring, it was steady rain and as we walked by the rivers and ponds beginning to form in the fairways and on the greens, reality was starting to set in about when play would resume (as in Friday). The mood lightened at noon when they started serving beer, and I found a festive outpost near the 14th green, where people milled about under their umbrellas (except for me) and commiserated about the weather. Some still held out hope about a rumor that there might be a window for some play that afternoon, but most didn't.

While at the 14th hole, I visited with a pair of fathers and sons. One pair who'd come from Montana and Virginia, and a man from Scotland who was visiting his New York-based son. We mostly talked about golf and the weather, but it was a nice way to pass the time with one of the best tasting Budweisers (wouldn't have been my first choice) I have had.

From there, I checked out 15 and 16, the only two holes I hadn't seen, and made the obligatory trip to the gift shop where I took my time (out of the rain) and came to the conclusion that some of the cheaper stuff you most want can only be found by the registers, so you go ahead and add it to your pile instead of having it replace things in your pile.

The short-lived boost from the Budweiser was wearing off, but the rain was not. I was completely saturated (I'd gone beyond the gore-tex's limits) and was starting to get cold. I donned the new windshirt I'd just purchased in the portajohn and managed to keep my belongings out of the urinal this time.

I'd seen the whole course including the expansive view from the first tee, where another drenched rat showed me the iconic Bethpage sign, "This is an extremely difficult course and is only recommended for highly skilled players," Interestingly he said it was turned around from its usual aspect and instead faced the players on the tee (I had to lean over the rail to see it), maybe an example of the USGA trying to get in its opponents' heads.

I knew I was reaching when I took a USGA survey at a kiosk, primarily so that I could loiter there out of the rain for a while. I was plotting my next move when play was called for the day at about 2 pm which was received with a mixture of disappointment and relief. So I joined the herd and waded through the mud soaked grounds toward the buses.

When I got back to the hotel I took one of the longest showers ever, and did manage to catch up with Steve for a great dinner.

The day hadn't turned out as I'd hoped, but it was great to spend a day away from the blackberry (and the laptop) watch a little golf, inspect Bethpage in person and meet a few fellow golf enthusiasts. Getting back to the hotel early also gave me the chance to share a few of these thoughts (using the word "few" loosely). And it was a good lesson in adjusting on the fly, so that if you're not with the wing man you expected, or the one who's always in your heart, sometimes it works out just fine to be your own wing man.