August 29, 2007
Last week's PGA Tour event reminded me of a golf writer's greatest nemesis: the security guard with attitude. Westchester has always featured the tour's most unbearable rent-a-cops -- since Tiger Woods didn't show up, they must have thought people came to the tournament to enjoy some undue harassment from Polly Pinkerton. Give someone a toy badge and they turn into Charles Bronson.
I'm sorry to report no incidents at this year's Barclays, although the lady guarding the steps leading to the locker room last Sunday afternoon probably hadn't bitten anyone's leg for at least 15 minutes when I passed her in my search for Rory Sabbatini. My day-glo orange tour credential is pretty tough to miss, and you'd think even the feistiest doberman would master the drill after six days of buddying up to a stairwell, but this duchess of defense just couldn't help herself.
Maybe I'll bring her an old sock to chew on next August.
What cracks me up is that I've never seen a ticket-holder try to crash a driving range, practice green or players-only area in a clubhouse. Of course, I've only been doing this for 16 years, and I'm sure that at least two or three times a season, some guy decides midway through his seventh Budweiser that he wants to go up and have a ham sandwich with Phil Mickelson.
You tell me, do we really need some Brutus Beefcake knockoff protecting the entrance to the dining room?
Spectators will pay $45 per day for tickets to this week's Deutsche Bank Championship. Many of them will park two miles from the course, spend 15 minutes on a shuttle bus, wait 10 minutes to use the bathroom and stand four-deep behind some ropes for just as long to see three golf shots. The last thing this league needs is to make that experience any less enjoyable, and I've seen (and been part of) too many confrontational incidents caused by overheated marshals, police academy dropouts and a few bullies who did graduate.
If tournament officials can't hire and train security forces to grasp the importance of a fan-friendly gathering, I suggest you spend a couple of days at next year's Wachovia Championship in Charlotte. The crowds are huge, the law enforcers courteous, the atmosphere second to none. It may not be the biggest reason that event is such a runaway success, but anyone who has been to a bunch of them will be happy to tell you, it's not at the bottom of the list, either.
Columns by The Angry Golfer -- a.k.a. Golf World columnist John Hawkins -- appear exclusively on GolfDigest.com.
- Text Size:
- Small Text
- Medium Text
- Large Text
