Wow this week I have had the privilege to volunteer with The First Tee of Fort Worth at their Caddy Days at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial. The students sign up and are chosen to serve as honorary caddies for the PGA Tour Pros who play in the Pro-Am. The kids caddy at the famous par 3 13th Hole. They meet their assigned pro at the tee box and have their official photograph taken as well as receive an autographed flagstick flag of the tournament. They will also have a First Tee hat and most of the pros autograph the hat as well as a ball. The pros are really super nice and chat with the kids, one or two even let them tee off (none made it over the water). Some of the older students then carry the golf bag around to the green while younger ones carry a club.
The students are so funny because you can really see their personalities! Some of them chat the whole time as they walk to the green while others are more shy. You can also see which pro golfers enjoy and are relaxed in these events. When they arrive at the green, the pros give some tips about reading the greens (or how to hit out of the sand traps) or chip onto the green. They are also often giving advice to the amateurs who have paid for the privilege of playing with them. The students are encouraged to help out and sometimes the pros let them putt out!
You can see how much this means to these young golfers as they walk off the green with huge smiles.
Now I served as the official blogger for The First Tee of Fort Worth for this event and I run their regular blog as well which I created for them! I began my session at a table right behind the ropes along the edge of the fringe of the green. On Monday the tournament is free and open to anyone and mostly the folks were volunteers, parents, and just avid golfers (Wednesdays are a bit more crowded). They were all really intrigued by what I was doing and kept watching me post on my little netbook computer. I would take several pictures of each of the students with their pros around the green, trying to especially snap them when they were discussing the putt or the student was putting. After every two groups came through, I then pulled out my memory card from my camera, plugged it in, downloaded the one or two pictures I wanted from those groups, resized them and posted them along with a brief narrative that included each child's name and the PGA professional player. So I posted about every 15-20 minutes. We had sent the link out to all of the parents, volunteers, donors and The First Tee Board members so they could follow along, especially parents or family members who could not be present at the event. After about 40 minutes, the guys who were working to prepare the fancy corporate boxes around the 13th green told me I could move up to one of those as they also had a plug-in for my computer. So I ended up with what are usually super prized weekend seats with the best view of the hole!
I blogged away for the day and really enjoyed the opportunity. As a volunteer, I have access to the tournament days for free along with free parking and a shuttle ride :) Nice deal. Unfortunately however, it does not provide me a slot in the Colonial Volunteers Day at the course held every November; for that you have to work the tournament as an official tournament volunteer. So maybe I can do that next year as well as blog at the pro-am, hopefully however they will have different shirts -- so far they have been this AWFUL bright yellowy-orange!! LOL
So I have been enjoying the warm weather (although a bit humid) and playing and watching some great golf. My handicap is down to 7.6 and I have been playing in the high 70s or very low 80s. Love my new hybrid club that I discussed in previous post and need to trade in my old Cleveland hybrid that I just never really like much. Thinking I may get one of the new SkyCaddie SGX golf gps units -- it is really pretty cool.
