New York: Part 3

The U.S. Open finally arrived. We were supposed to go to the final day of the tournament, but due to rain delays earlier in the week, we were actually going to see the 3rd round and not the 4th because it had been pushed to Monday. The tournament took place at the Bethpage Black course in Farmingdale, New York. Before we left for our trip, we did a little research to see what we could bring to the course. Erik read that we couldn't bring any cameras. I couldn't believe it! I was very upset that we wouldn't have any photos documenting our day. Seriously, the click of a camera is really going to distract the players? They deal with heckling fans all day.

The day of the tournament, we had to wake up around 6am in order to make the train to Farmingdale. It took us about two hours to get to the "check point" where we had to check our very small backpack because it had STRAPS. So retarded! We got to the course around 10am and because the course was so wet, they delayed the start times until noon. That gave us time to do a little walking around and watch the players warm up at the driving range. We were also able to get our one and only picture for the day with the U.S. Open trophy. (I doubt it was really the actual trophy though.)


I have to say that I wasn't really looking forward to an entire day of golf, but to my surprise, watching golf in person is way more entertaining than on TV even with my tired and soaking wet feet. Thanks to portable TV's the guys got at the course for free, we were able to watch the live coverage and scout out our route for watching players throughout the day. It's very hard to follow players because there are so many people. In order to watch Tiger, we had to find out what hole he was currently on and then walk to the hole three or four places in front of him. I couldn't believe how many people were there and Erik was surprised how much more narrow the fairways are when you see them in person. These guys were incredible to watch and we all had a lot of fun. Bryan and Jon went back on Monday to watch the final round, but Erik and I decided to stay in and watch it on TV. Overall, I think Erik really enjoyed his anniversary gift. I know I did.