I’ve always preferred watching golf tournaments on television to attending them in person. Like the Tour de France or a Formula 1 race, the narrative arc of a strokeplay golf competition can only be perceived with the wide-angle lens that television gives you. From vantage points close to the action, individual vignettes can be savored, but their meaning often dissipates in the absence of narrative clarity, and being in the right place at the right time to see the key moments is more a matter of luck than judgment.
For the 2013 Open Championship, I discovered a new – and hopefully better – way to watch golf: I worked at Muirfield as a spotter for ESPN. Armed with two-way radios and all-access armbands, spotters patrol the front lines of the battle to create narrative order from the chaos of tournament golf. Every day I followed a different group from inside the ropes and acted as the eyes and ears of the production team: when one of my guys was doing well, I made sure Jim Zirolli – my ESPN production contact, a Connecticut native with a Hartford Whalers cap and a permanent grin – knew my group’s hitting order at every tee, fairway and green and how many shots each golfer had taken. If anyone made several birdies in a row, or received a notable slice of good or bad luck, or faced a pleasingly televisual predicament (e.g., an awkward stance in a bunker or against a stone wall), or was on the clock because of slow play, I reported that as well. In turn, “Jimmy Z” filtered the spotters’ reports to his fellow producers who chose which shots to show and which graphics to display to the viewers back home.
Does that sound like fun? It was, to a point. On Thursday, my assigned threesome of Alvaro Quiros, Kyle Stanley and Alex Noren was a combined 28-over-par after 14 holes, and as I trudged around Muirfield in near-silence I pondered existential questions about being at the epicenter of the golfing world yet unable to watch any decent golf. But then a BBC spotter told me Shiv Kapur – in the fourth-last group of the day – had birdied his first three holes, and as I was near the fourth green and none of my colleagues were following Kapur’s threesome, I volunteered my services and was quickly rerouted. Kapur promptly birdied three more holes to lead the tournament outright, and suddenly I was at the heart of ESPN’s coverage – calling every shot over the radio, running up the fairways to measure and report yardages to the hole, even sharing my own tales of having watched Kapur shoot 64 to qualify for the Open at my home course of Dunbar. By the time Kapur’s closing par ended ESPN’s first-day telecast, I’d been on the course for eight straight hours and 30 consecutive holes, applied three separate coatings of sunblock, sneaked bottles of water from the coolers at two tees to stay hydrated, used the “FOR PLAYERS ONLY” portable toilet by the 10th green in the absence of reasonable alternatives, and felt like I’d never worked harder or better in my life.
Friday was fun as well. My group included Darren Clarke and Martin Laird, both of whom shot 71 to remain in contention, while Jimmy Z remained in fine form, constantly chattering into my earpiece and narrating the ebbs and flows of “the movie”, as he called the broadcast:
“O’Meara just made another bogey – he’s out of the movie.”
“If Leonard can get one more birdie, he might get back into this flick.”
He also uttered my favorite line of the week:
“Sergio is peeing in the bushes! Garcia totally just peed in the bushes to the right of the eighth fairway. I guess that’s why Muirfield doesn’t have any lady members.”
Alas, at the weekend the veteran spotters got the best groups, and I was left following Steven Tiley and Ken Duke on Saturday, and then Thomas Bjorn and Matt Kuchar on Sunday. I learned a lot about Muirfield itself and saw plenty of competent golf, but none of the latter was particularly broadcast-worthy. At least things improved after I clocked off: from my late-Saturday spot at the top of the grandstand behind the 13th green, I could see six different holes through my ESPN-borrowed binoculars and compose my own mental broadcast, while on Sunday afternoon I secured a great position behind the 17th green from which I saw Phil Mickelson’s amazing approach and decisive birdie. I’d kept my spotter’s radio on and knew Mickelson was more than 300 yards from the flag, and I knew from everything I’d seen that week exactly how tough the 17th hole was playing into the easterly wind, so at that moment I was probably as qualified as anyone to judge and appreciate the greatness of Mickelson’s shot.
Still…does that really matter? I don’t subscribe to the modern cult of celebrity, so why should seeing great golfers in the flesh viscerally thrill me? Aren’t memories what you make of them, regardless of how you experience them? What does it mean to have had seen Mickelson’s birdie at the 17th so clearly, except that my six-foot-three presence two rows behind the ropes meant someone else wasn’t able to see it at all? (Equally, was the buzz I got from being inside the ropes not tempered by regret at occasionally obstructing the sightlines of other paying spectators?) With my binoculars I could just see Mickelson raise his hands in triumph at the final hole between two TV towers, just as I saw Lee Westwood make his amazing eagle at the fifth hole on Saturday from my perch high above the 13th – but what does it mean to have “seen” those moments live and in person from such a distance, instead of on television from a comfy seat in my living room or while inside the ropes as an ESPN spotter? There are no right answers to these questions, but my desire to ask them fills me with a curious melancholy.
In the end, I’m not sure I enjoyed the 142nd Open Championship any more than many other Opens I’ve watched on television. However, this time I do think I gave a tiny something back to the Open itself: I improved the viewing experience in some small way for everyone back home who would have loved to be at Muirfield in my place, and when I was off duty I also got to applaud some of the golfers whose great exploits have excited and delighted me for so many years. After all, nobody can actually hear you clap on the other side of the TV screen.
(Photo: the tools of my trade at Muirfield – ESPN cap, radio with headset, backpack full of water and sunblock, lanyard with media pass, and spotter's armband worn around my belt.)