Drove there at 6:30am in the pouring rain wondering how my the day would play out and if any players would even bother with a practice round. I seriously was like a kid in a candy store when we arrived, could just feel the excitement. First walked by the range, which had a few players on it, but none that I recognized. So went over to the 1st tee/practice putting green and Stuart Appleby was putting around. So we stayed and watched him tee off and I was hooked at that moment. It's truly amazing seeing these guys in person to realize how good they are and how crappy of a player I really am.
We then proceeded to walk the course backwards, in hopes to catch players teeing off at 1 and 10, since there were no tee times posted yet. When we finally made it around to 12, started talking to one of the volunteers working the tee time board and he said that Tiger is out and on 8 right now. So at 12, you have 12/11/10/9 all right there. So we go stand by the 9 green and tiger shows up a few minutes later. Then my friend and I thinking we are so smart, we run over to 10's tee while tiger is still putting on 9. We got spot right next to the box and waited. While waiting, Furyk shows up and tees off, starting his play from 10. So then we look over as Tiger should def be heading over by now and we see him walking back towards 9's tee, the opposite direction of 10. We are like, wtf? Yep, he then basically darts off into the woods and hops in a waiting car and heads back to the clubhouse. So we did get to see him and get some pics, but our master plan of seeing him tee off on 10 didn't work out too much, lol. We then continued our journey around the course, stopping to watch anyone we saw on our way.
The practice round day was awesome, never getting too crowded - even when the sun came out later in the day. We were able to walk right up to the 1st tee at 2pm and get front row spot next to the box and player's entrance. Plus being able to have a camera was awesome, took over 80 pictures, lol. Posting some below (is there a way to do a mass upload of pictures?).
I am going again on Friday, but I have a feeling Monday's practice round is going to end up being so much more enjoyable. Just wish Phil showed up, but oh well.
By the way, beer starts getting served at 11am, don't let certain concession stands tell you 11:30am
