In The Media Mess For The Sixth Time
by Alfie Lau, Inside Golf and intrepid BCG reporter
Never has the U.S. Open been closer to home for British Columbians, but that only intensifies the pressure for us media types covering the event.
Having covered six U.S. Opens for Inside Golf, the 2015 version, at Chambers Bay, presented a variety of unique challenges.
While the course was a manageable 4-hour drive away from Vancouver, securing suitable accommodation close to Tacoma proved quite challenging.
Tacoma motels which normally sell in the $70 per night range suddenly became $350 while affordable Seattle hotels, which are normally 40 minutes away suddenly became nightmarish two-hour commutes in the heart of rush-hour traffic.
Thanks goodness for our membership in the Golf Writers Association of America, which sent out a note that a local homeowner was renting rooms five minutes from the course for only $100 per night.
Not only was the price better than any hotel, motel, bed & breakfast or AirBNB within an hour of Chambers Bay, being so close to the course meant more time to relax both before and after the long days on the golf course.
Once we reached the course early Tuesday morning, it became a mad scramble to try to balance seeing the course, catching up with Canadian friends who had come down to watch the U.S. Open, and attending the 10 press conferences of all the contenders for the title.
As editor Bryan Outram and I hustled out to see Tiger Woods tee off at 7 a.m., we discovered that the USGA had set up media viewing platforms on 16 of the 18 holes on the course. These areas, often beside greens or teeboxes, gave us with media credentials unblocked views of each hole.
image credit bryan outram
Tiger Woods Had To Hit This Shot Out Of A Bunker Fronting The Green On The 3rd Hole At Chambers Bay After His Ball Rolled Back Some 50-75 Feet Down A Slope - It Didn't End Well, But It Was Only A Practice Round....
The views on the first, second and third holes were spectacular, but getting to them was much more difficult. For example, after you watch the tee shot from the first hole, you must walk back the entire length of the 18th hole to the 1st green before getting to the media platform.
From there, you have to walk down the right side of the second fairway to the second green platform, but that includes crossing the second fairway, not always easy with thousands of spectators trying to find their way around the course.
It’s an easy walk from the second green platform to the third teebox platform (#3 is a par 3), but after seeing Woods make a double bogey when his tee shot rolled 50 feet back into a bunker, we knew that the walk to the fourth teebox would literally be a bridge too far.
Woods, playing with Jordan Spieth and Russell Henley, had to walk more than 5 minutes to the fourth teebox, which told me that us media types would rarely, if ever see that teebox this week. Instead, a better routing is to get to the left side of the second hole and watch golfers play up the 16th, 17th and 18th holes.
As we walked back along that picturesque closing stretch, who would we come upon but outstanding British Columbia golfer Alex Francois and his father Joseph.
image credit bryan outram
From L-R: Joseph Francois, Alfie Lau, Alex Francois
Alex has earned a scholarship to Boise State this September and as part of his preparation for college golf, he has decided to skip the BC Amateur at Fairview Mountain this July. But this beautiful June day was about seeing a Major mere hours from their Burnaby home.
They had come down on Monday and Tuesday to watch the practice rounds and after tromping through all 18 holes Monday, they wanted to find Woods for several holes. After we informed them that Woods was probably on the fifth hole, they hightailed it down the path we had just walked back from, in search of Tiger Woods.
Once we got back to the media centre, the onslaught of media interviews began with the endearing 15-year-old amateur Cole Hammer. Hammer shot 64-68 at his sectional qualifier last week in Dallas and wowed the media with his honest and telling answers.
Hammer said both his parents are multiple-time club champions at his home course of River Oaks Country Club and while he didn’t beat his dad until he was 13, he did manage to beat his mom when he was 10 or 11. “Yeah, she can hit it pretty far,” Hammer said. “It was kind of a disadvantage when I was younger.”
Hammer also copped to having the nickname of 'Hammer Time' and said it was a highlight to play a practice round with Jordan Spieth and hit balls on the range alongside Rory McIlroy. “Every one of his three shots, I’d look over,” Hammer said of McIlroy. “He hits it so far, it’s crazy. Yeah, it was really cool being able to hit balls next to the No. 1 player in the world.”
Hammer’s press conference was followed, in order, by McIlroy, local favourite Michael Putnam, Tiger Woods and Graeme McDowell before we could catch our breathes for lunch.
After lunch, it was Martin Kaymer, Henrik Stenson, Rickie Fowler, Phil Mickelson and the final gathering with Barbara and Jack Nicklaus. Barbara was receiving an award from the USGA and having her husband around, well, that’s a bonus.
As the afternoon begins, we need to get out on the course and follow Canadian David Hearn, who’s placing a 1:55 p.m. practice round. The other Canadian in the field, Edmonton’s Brad Fritsch, isn’t scheduled to play a practice round today, so if you’re looking for Canadian content, it’s a David Hearn Tuesday.
In the middle of all this, we have to write and post articles about all this, Facebook and Tweet these same happenings, take some pictures, both with a conventional camera and with our SmartPhones, and because this U.S. Open is so close to home, we’re often happily interrupted by old friends who are here covering their first and probably only U.S. Open.
There’s no time on the first day to go check out fun fan areas such as the Spectator Square and the Merchandise Tent. But alas, with many more days on the course, that will happen before the week is out.
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