The PLAYERS Championship 2011

     The 2011 Players is now over and it was an incredible week. Starting on Monday I arrived at the tournament and registered for my credentials and went out and did a quick tour of the back nine. It was relatively uncrowded so I got around pretty easily, saw the condition the course was in and headed over to the practice tee. I haven't been out to the tournament as a member of the media in many years so being back in this element this year was a real treat. I saw lots of people I have known from the golf industry over the years, renewed some old friendships and made some new ones. I've never blogged before, but for some reason I decided to post some comments on THE PLAYERS Championship facebook page after I took some really good shots of Phil Mickelson signing autographs for the fans. A promotional guy saw my posts and emailed me asking me to come by and see him about writing for his promotional endeavor at the tournament.

Phil Mickelson signed autographs at the 18th green.

    Tuesday I dropped into the Verizon booth and talked to Courtney Barnette and he asked me to simply take a few pictures and make a few posts on his page. His company is called Mobility Cast and they are "event experts" who do promotions, in this case he was working for Verizon Wireless. I just sort of did my thing, I didn't really have any specific instructions, but I had a blast making my posts. When I saw something cool I either took a picture of it, or wrote something about it (or both) on my facebook page or the Mobility Cast facebook page, or on THE PLAYERS Championship facebook page. All of a sudden I realized that essentially I was blogging! As a golf writer for Travelhost Magazine I decided that if I was going to blog I should also be blogging for our magazine's facebook page as well. That would be: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Travelhost-First-Coast-Jacksonville-Amelia-Island-St-Augustine/224873126209?ref=ts. So to make a long story less long, by Wednesday I was blogging on four facebook pages and having a really good time doing it!

I hit a few putts in the Verizon booth!

        I wandered over to the practice tee and ran into Billy Maxwell, 7 time winner on the PGA TOUR and member of the 1963 Ryder Cup team. Billy was kind enough to spend some time chatting with me and we took a picture or two together as well!

Billy Maxwell was gracious to pose for a picture with me!

          Wednesday morning I walked the entire course, stopping at number 17 to watch as the caddies got to take a shot at the par three island green. Trevor Immelman was walking with his golf instructor, David Ledbetter, and when the caddies took their shots, Ledbetter walked over and stood right next to me. I introduced myself, asked him if he would mind doing a quick interview, and we chatted for a few minutes about the importance of armature golfer golfers taking lessons from trained professionals (you'll be able to read that article in October's issue of Travelhost). I headed over to the practice tee after that and ran into Gary Koch. Gary was a favorite player of mine when he was on the TOUR and I have always liked his announcing style so I asked him for a quick interview and he was happy to oblige. The TOUR Players Wive's were hosting a special function on Wednesday morning so I headed over to the 17th Hole Challenge and snapped off some pictures and chatted with a few of the wives and was just really impressed at how they give to the community when they are in the cities where their husband's are playing. Jim and Tabitha Furyk were the hosts of the event and they did an outstanding job!

Jim and Tabitha Furyk spent some time with the kids from
the hospital signing autographs and making them feel special.

     I stopped into the 17th Hole Challenge every day and took a shot at the scaled down version of the 17th hole. It is 35 yards, reduced to scale identical to the actual hole, both with water and the little pot bunker in the front. If you hold the green you win a sleeve of Callaway golf balls, a hole in one nets you an ipad II, and closest to the hole each day wins a $100.00 gift card for any Callaway products. I didn't hole out or get closest to the hole, but I did win a sleeve of balls six out of the seven days (I didn't make it out on Thursday) and gave every one of them to the next kid who tried and didn't win.

I hit the green all six days!

     After Thursday's round Nick Watney was in the lead at 8 under with Jacksonville native, Chad Reynolds on the bag. Nick teed off at 1:30 on Friday so I went over to the first tee and met up with Chad's brother, Paco, and we walked the front nine with that group.

Paco and me following Nick Watney.

     Saturday was spent mostly blogging for Verizon, I was inside when the storm came rolling in and I didn't even know it was raining until it was almost over! I headed out early and went home and watched the play resume on television, which in my opinion (and after all, It is Just My Opinion!) was the best place to be at that point!

     Sunday saw the third round resume at 7:45 am and I went out to watch Nick Watney finish up. He started out with a bang, but faltered just a little bit coming down the home stretch. Best part of Sunday though was that I met up with one of my oldest friends from childhood, Todd Cowgill, who I hadn't  seen in nearly 40 years!

Me and my old pal Todd!

     We were like a couple of kids hanging out who hadn't seen each other in more like a couple of days than almost 40 years. We went over to The Bluff and reserved some chairs, then we cruised all over the place watching golf, talking, catching up on what we have done with ourselves since sixth grade, and finally ending up back behind the 18th green, where the PGA TOUR has eliminated the corporate hospitality chalets to provide a seating area for fans. My hat is off to the TOUR for providing an awesome fan experience by providing canvas folding chairs to the first two hundred spectators to arrive every day and allowing them to keep the chairs that they reserve. They call it The Bluff, and all of the chairs are embroidered with: "The Bluff 2011 The Players."

The Bluff

We sat there and watched the final two hours as the leaders came down the stretch, seeing David Toms make birdie on 18 to force the playoff with KJ Choi, then watching on the jumbotron the first playoff hole and a great victory by Choi.

     It was a great week at The PLAYERS, but now its time to really get down to work and start planning for next year's tournament! I'll be writing the golf column for Travelhost from here on out so I will be busy all year long! We have events all over Jacksonville going on between now and next year's golf tournament so put my blog in your bookmarks and keep up with all the activity from my perspective!

The Travelhost First Coast crew, Ann Meyer,

Eric Kennedy, Jennifer Boyer and Mike Kaufmann.