Fourteen years after I started volunteering at golf tournaments and after scoring more than a dozen U.S. Opens, I scored my first PGA tournament at Aronimink Golf Club on a rainy week in September of 2018.
Thanks to the committee chair – a lady I’ve worked with over the years at USGA events who I consider a friend – that Saturday I was granted a rare decision: the option of scoring the final group of Justin Rose, Keegan Bradley and Xander Schauffele or a group further back in the field comprised of Keith Mitchell, Jason Kokrak and Peter Uihlein.
I’d already scored Keith and Peter Thursday when Pete fired an opening nine 30 and came home with a very respectable 64 for a share of fourth place in the opening round. The other group was compelling to say the least, not only were they the players playing best that week, but with a win Rose could move to #1 in the Official World Rankings (on a course he’d notched a victory on already this decade); Bradley was trying to overcome a six-year winless drought; and, after last year, we all knew Schauffele plays some great golf late in the season.
That said, I read her text twice, stared at my phone for a few seconds and typed back: “If I can get there in time, Pete always.”
It was nine years ago – and less than seven miles away – that I watched Peter Uihlein compete on a golf course for the first time. That weekend in the Walker Cup at Merion Golf Club I walked both of his singles rounds functioning as a moving rope to keep him “safe” from the Main Line crowds. He finished that week 4-0-0 as the USA recorded a decisive victory over Great Britain & Ireland.
Over the ensuing years I’ve had the privilege of seeing him compete in elite amateur tournaments, an NCAA championship, a PGA Tour event here or there, and all four major championships – including the Masters and U.S. Open when he was still a college kid after his U.S. Amateur victory earned him the right to play. I’d scored him in Dubai on the European Tour, walked inside the ropes with him during practice rounds on three continents, and rooted for him through iPhone apps, the internet and on television as he played around the world – often texting with his mom and cousin in the process.
He’d introduced me to Talor Gooch, Cory Whitsett and (through Talor) Wyndham Clark – all guys I’ve followed, cheered on and shared meals and drinks with across the country as they too pursue their golf dreams. Thanks to Pete, I don’t just watch golf, or just volunteer, or just score golf… I feelgolf. Through him – and through those remarkably talented guys I met in his orbit – the game comes alive in ways it never did before those walks around Merion.
But for two rounds in the Philly suburbs I got to record every stroke Pete took on the biggest tour in the world so those apps and those websites – and even those TV viewers – would know exactly what was happening. He had kept his card and was wrapping up his first season on the PGA Tour, advancing all the way to the third tournament of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
And here I was, inside the ropes, getting to tag along with the best view of all the action.
He was the first player to arrive on the first tee that Saturday morning and walked up laughing with a big smile on his face and said, “Oh you again?” I told him the choice I got to make and he laughed harder, telling me I was an idiot.
I replied that I was just a fan and that’s how fans are.
In the years he’s spent improving his game, honing his talents and climbing the world rankings, I’ve devoted a few weeks a year to volunteering, scoring some golf and better understanding the flow of a tournament – finding a way to be of value, making some friends along the way and earning the trust of the men and women who produce golf on nearly every level it’s played.
The thing that’s never changed is how Pete and I interact on the walks we take around a golf course. We laugh, we pick on each other, the emotions run a little deep. He’s the kid who first made me feel it, the first who let me understand the heartbeat of the game, brush against the insecurities of it, and become immersed in its joy.
I won’t get the choice to walk inside the ropes or score his rounds very often – but if ever given the chance, I’m always going to take it.
So while that week I learned a slightly new scoring system and used a different device to record the shots than I’d ever used before, what I really confirmed was something I probably knew all along: given the choice – as rare and infrequent as that may be – I will always pick to be inside the ropes with Pete, or Talor, or Wyndham, or Cory over anyone in the world, regardless of the players or the tournament.
Because that for me will always be something even more than being inside the ropes and being of value to a tournament. Those will be the times I will feel every moment: every made putt, every crisply struck wedge, every thundering drive, every eagle and birdie, every lost ball and dropped shot. And feelinggolf like that will always be more than watching it, or scoring it, or tracking it for any other players, no matter their fame or their world ranking.
What I can’t wait for is to be assigned to score the final group for one or more of them coming down the stretch as the opportunity to win gets within their grasp.
If I get the option – and get the choice – I’ll always take it.