2010 Byron Nelson Championship

I volunteered again this year for the Byron Nelson championship.  I was a Laser Operator again for the PGA Tour's Shotlink system that measures the players drives, how far they have left to the hole, and the information is submitted to show on the leaderboards around the course, TV coverage, and player stats.

I worked the long fairway laser on the par 5 16th hole on Saturday, and the fairway laser on the par 4 10th hole on Sunday.  In addition to seeing every player that made the cut for the weekend, I had brief encountered with greatness on both days (well, at least the second day).  On Saturday, when the final group was passing through, I had lasered Jason Day's second shot and he had 44 yards left to the pin.  Peter Kostis of CBS Sports came by and asked me the distance he had left, I told him, and then he broadcasted that information right there in front of me.  Cool.

On the second day, I walked up to the 10th green to survey the hole location when none other than Nick Faldo came jogging up in workout clothes and stopped to take notes on the hole location, surveying the break from several angles.  I said, "Good morning, Mr. Faldo", and he nodded back to me.  Sure, it was just a nod from Nick, but this is the winner of three Masters and three British Opens, formerly ranked #1 golfer in the world.  After his surveying was complete, he jogged on to the next hole.

It is funny how many questions we get from the spectators wanting to know what in the world we do.  There is a lot of technology that goes into a golf tournament, all the grunt work done by us volunteers.  A walking scorer will walk with each group carrying a Symbol device running the Palm operating system (i.e. Palm Pilot).  99.9% of the time, this is a woman (normally a wife of one of the "red pants" from the Salesmanship club).  They record every shot for each player in the group, record if they hit the fairway or not, if they hit the green or not, what their lie is for a shot, any penalty shots, what color of clothing they are wearing, etc.  The color clothing is used by the laser operators like me to confirm who is on the tee box from a distance since we're typically 320 yards away or so (by the way any walking scorers reading this, from 320 yards away, I can't tell the difference in striped blue and gray, or perhaps the difference in pink and light salmon, just put PINK!).  The laser operators have Symbols as well that show each group, the clothing color, the presumed order that the players will tee of in, and a little golf ball shows up next to a players name when he hits his ball (this is done when the walking scorer records a shot in that group).  As a laser operator, I can measure the drive to within a 10th of a foot or so and the greenside lasers measure to around a quarter of an inch.  I submit this information as soon as I laser a ball and that information is transmitted wirelessly to the Shotlink truck and fed to the leaderboards on the course within a couple of seconds, the TV coverage, and Shotlink online (see example from the Colonial below).

Here are some questions that I got from spectators:
:  Does this thing measure the player's swing speed?
:  No, it lasers the player's ball to measure distances.
:  Do you laser it while the ball is in the air?
:  Sigh No, only after it stops rolling (I should have said yes, that would have impressed them).
:  Is this the camera that shows the ball in the air on TV.
:  No, that is a camera, this is a laser.
:  Does a little red spot appear on the ball when you laser it?
:  Sigh No, this isn't a gun scope.

I didn't scan all of the TV coverage from the tournament, but I did find myself in the shot below.  In the upper-right hand portion of the image, you can see my partner and I (I'm the one on the left).  Sure, I'm just a few white and blue pixels, but that's me.

I also thought I would post the photo of myself and the late Byron Nelson from 2005.  It was always great having him around the tournament.  I look forward to next year.