Memories of the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines Won by Tiger Woods!

The historic 2008 United States Open was my first one as part of a golf broadcast team. Actually my golf career was less than six months in duration at the time. A quick synopsis of how I came to golf would be that it was time to embark on a second career in life, I had written two books, loved golf so I put the two together thinking I should become a golf writer! My destination in golf was Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Why? Because that is where I knew the PGA TOUR was headquartered and where THE PLAYERS Championship was played every year on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. I also knew there was a YMCA there and a nice lady, who I now consider my adopted Mom, offered me to stay as a guest in her home for two weeks so I could get the lay of the land. Looking back over the last eight years, I could not have made a better choice of a destination in golf. Today with The Golf Channel nearby in Orlando and the World Golf Hall of Fame nearby in St. Augustine, I consider Ponte Vedra Beach to be the modern capital of the Golf World. How did I come to be assisting in the golf broadcast of the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines? Very simply, my strategy of learning the golf business from the bottom up paid off and paid off quite quickly. From my corporate days I knew the best way to learn was to learn by doing so I volunteered to work the four tournaments of the 2008 Florida Swing as a marshal, Shotlink person, a car parker and even a corporate hospitality attendant. The most amazing thing was that even before I left Ponte Vedra Beach to work the Honda Classic, Erin from NBC Sports called and asked me to be a spotter. I didn't know what that was so I asked her what is a spotter? Her reply was basically we assign you to a group, give you a radio so that you can report "player-shot" when asked, get to walk inside the ropes and get paid. Well I thought that was something really good, even something I would pay them to let me do so I signed up for all four of the Florida Swing tournaments and worked both for NBC Sports and as a volunteer for the tournaments. Fast forward a few months and there I was out in Southern California spotting for NBC Sports and witnessing up close and personable a memorable Major golf tournament. My two California golfing buddies Rich and Glenn also spotted for NBC that week. Lots of good times and two especially funny incidents with Glenn. In the early days I paid for my own travel and being freelance (which is basically unemployed) on a limited budget, Glenn and I shared a cheap hotel room not far from Torrey Pines. Funny thing is though when I went to take my shower I realized Glenn had mistaken the identity of my bath towel and used it as a floor mat after taking his shower. Good times staying with an old friend. So the key to being a good spotter is being decisive and sharing only information known to be true with the person on the other end of the radio transmission. That person is in the hot seat feeding the player-shot information onto the producer and the on-air talent. Nobody wants to have to make a correction on air to re-inform viewers of having previously misinformed them. So Glenn is stationed on the tee at a par-3 to report the club used so that it can be passed along to the on-air talent and used in an onscreen graphic. After all, we all want to know what club a professional golfer uses and how much farther they hit it than us mere mortal golfers! Glenn gets the first call of the day and responds with "not really sure, it might have been a 7-iron." Luckily, that was his worse call of the week and everyone after it was spot on which is a good thing for a spotter! Everyone knows the story of the 2008 US Open. Tiger Woods, playing on a broken leg drains a 25-footer on the last to get into a Monday playoff with Rocco Mediate. They tie after the 18 holes and Tiger wins the sudden death with a par to Rocco's bogey on the second, actually 20th playoff hole. My brother Dave and I watched the playoff round inside the ropes which was quite the experience. My funniest memory was overhearing a conversation behind me which seemed to indicate he was hiding a bit not wanted to be caught on camera. So as I turned around I said "who are you hiding from, your boss or your wife?" I was surprised to see that the guy was my New York Yankees idol, none other than Reggie Jackson. But who would have thought it would be Tiger's last major for the next eight years? Here are my memories of the 2008 US Open won by Tiger Woods in 96 pictures: