US Open Experience

I attended the US Open golf tournament yesterday. The open is being held at Torrey Pines which is about 20 mintues north of America's finest city. I'm speaking, of course, about San Diego.

Everything is nicer down there: The weather, the houses, the people, the dirt, the sky, the air, the water, the flowers, trees and bushes. EVERYTHING. The pace there is also nice. Come to think of it, I could do San Diego and it's environs. Not too shabby. Not shabby at all.

We arrived at the open around 9am, and proceeded to walk ourselves into oblivion by 4pm.

Did we see Tiger? Of course. We saw A LOT of golfers from all over the globe. We saw incredible shots made by the finest players in the world. We saw poor shots also made by the finest players the game has ever produced. It was a great experience to see the way each player made his way around the course.

The best part of the entire day however was the people watching. There were guys stomping around with their golf shoes on...as if the tournament would need a 4th?

There were people of all shapes and sizes.

Some examples:

1. Women wearing high heels, mini-skirts, and skimpy tops. Either they rolled last night into today, or else they were just stupid. High heels on a golf course? Some did look pretty nice though....they were just out of place.

2. Guys in golf shoes. I mentioned this before, but this behavior merits special attention. Who wears golf shoes to a golf tournament? It's like people who wear their tennis outfit to a tennis tourament. It's just stupid. We laugh out loud at people like this.

3. The ugly fat guys that run in packs: they're drunk of course, and always holler, "You da man," whenever Phil hits a shot. This was funny 10 years ago. It's stupid now.

4. Guys in suits. This isn't the British Open.

5. The handicapped people have it the best. They get moved to the front of all the lines. They get placed right next to the grandstands with outstanding views....and they always get the best parking spots.

6. The New Yorkers. No doubt about it, I can spot/hear a New Yawker a sand wedge away. They usually where alot of gold jewelry(they chains on the guys are always too small though), have closely cropped dark hair with stinky gel, cheap cologne, 1990's style short pants, and a diaglogue with their friends that is both profane and annoying at the same time.

7. The Goth people at the open threw me for a loop. Usually they sleep during the day and are considered "creatures of the night." On Friday however, several of them journeyed out of their cave to brave the sunshine and mingle among the golf crowd of mostly white, middle-class Americans. The tattoo's, dark clothing, and dark hair sort of gave them away. Goth people dig golf? Who knew?


Our group had fun and the hospitality experience that was put together made our clients feel very welcome. The food in the hospitality ballroom was great - we had big screen tvs to keep track of the tournament plus video golf instruction that allowed us to hit golf balls into a net and see how far and accurate we could hit. The joint also offered an open bar and for those in our group who wanted to party, they had a great time. Me? I imbibed on diet cokes.