What I Love about golf. Tournament Days
A reflection on everything I love about the game. Today – The feel of a golf course on tournament days.
I love the feel of a golf course on the day of a tournament. Don’t know how this works but I would drive through the gates at Harding Park everyday and it would feel the same, then on the first day of the City Championship it would feel different. I liked how the golf course felt different on tournament days. I noticed every tournament I went to had that feel, a little buzz, people paying attention, not a lot of talking going on. Intention. I liked how the guy on the range watched his ball a little longer while warming up, how the head nods of a greeting were a little more deliberate, more people on the putting green, people everywhere really. My Dad said Harvey Ward always used to warm up by taking his old golf balls, dropping them on the side of the 18th fairway, near the old parking lot, and hit them into Lake Merced. For some reason I thought that was cool.
The first tournament I ever played in was the SF City Junior Championship at Lincoln Park. I remember the feel of walking from the parking lot to the pro shop and then to the putting green. Every tournament I went to had that same feeling. I remember standing on the putting green after the first round of the second stage of Q-School at Bayonet in Monterrey, I remember the feel of that putting green, it was the same feel as the first day of my first tournament. I love that feeling.
