Rush hour traffice for us again today as we left early this morning going to Scottsdale to meet friends Mary Kay and Everett for breakfast and a day at the weekly PGA event, the FBR Open (formerly the Phoenix Open). Mary Kay and Everett live in Des Moines and share 2 beautiful granddaughters with us since their son Blair was smart enough to marry daughter Ralph – and she was smart enough to accept! They are renting a house here for a month so we decided to spend a day together.
My only other experience with pro golf has been at the Nationwide Tourney held in Springfield each summer so a chance to see the PGA was something I didn’t want to miss. Despite cool winds and a high of 60 the sun was bright and the course was impeccable – I can only imagine all the work that went into getting it ready for the event, especially with the torrential rains they had just a few days ago. We spent about an hour at the 18th hole and were rewarded by seeing notables such as Vijay Singh (admire his golf, but not the person), Brandt Snedecker (2007 Rookie of the Year – I went to college with his parents) and my personal favorite, Phil Mickelson. It was amazing to think that these are the golfers I watch on Sunday afternoons on TV and there they were – right in front of me. To prove how human they are, we saw Fred Couples 3-putt what should have been a gimmee hole!
We had heard of the legendary 16th hole where Tiger Woods once made a hole-in-one and another time the fans moved a boulder that was blocking his shot – so naturally we had to see it. It’s a 162-yard par 3 hole with very little to show for fairway except some cacti, rocks, boulders and tall dessert grass – then a sloping green surrounded by 3-4 large sand traps. There were 2-story sky boxes and grandstands surrounding almost the entire hole and the fans were definitely a bunch of rowdies. Not possessing the $500 skybox passes, we opted for the public grandstands and ended up near the tee box with a couple of guys whose sole purpose seemed to be to rally the crowd. They had sets of cards with which to score each tee shot like in professional skating and each time the TV cameras came their way they held up “16″ and yelled “Welcome to the 16th hole!” We quickly got in the spirit of things when they found out we were from Missouri and one of them was married to an MU Tiger – small world – so they gave us cards and let us be official scoreres too! The only downer was a group farther down from us who delighted in booing the bad shots – for some reason I think of golf as a more courteous sport and dislike that kind of fan attitude but apparently the 16th hole fans are well-known for this behavior. It’s also the reason Tiger no longer plays here. 
We stayed until the last group finished and watched several players on the driving range and putting greens and then headed back to the car. We were quite impressed with the shuttle bus system and parking lot logistics since it took less than 15 minutes for us to get from a long line at the bus stop until we were on the 101 and again caught in rush hour traffic!
After a day at the FBR it will really be interesting to watch the finals on TV Sunday and see how the course looks through the eyes of the camera.
