Was a blast. This was my first time going to watch a PGA tour event and it was awesome. I'm sad it's the last Buick Open since its really the only PGA tour event in Michigan and I only got attend it once. It was a blast.

A friend scooped me up at 8:30am and we headed up to Grand Blanc, Michigan. We had a good group of us just ready to drink all day and watch some great golf and enjoy the weather. Was nice out, calm, sunny just perfect golfing conditions for the most part.

We arrived around 11:00am and watched some players warm up on the range. Then we toured the course and got familiar with the place and waited for the beer stands to open basically.

It was nothing like I expected. First of all there were about 5x as many people as I thought would be there. The crowd that followed Tiger Woods was completely rediculous...it was a full on mob. We camped out a few holes ahead of Tiger and got to watch him up close a few times. We were close enough to here him talk to his caddie and literally coulda reached out and touched him. A ton of people were actually trying to at points but he didn't even acknowledge any of em which was kinda weak I thought. He had a good lead on some no name players and wouldn't loosen up at all and kinda seemed like a dick but I guess when you're so popular things probably change and you can't please everyone.

We also saw jim Furyk, Justin Leonard, David Duval and some other bigger names. I wanted to see Rocco Mediate but we didn't get a chance too.

The 17th whole at Warwick Hills was crazy. It was THE party hole. And its something almost straight out of happy gilmore. There is grand stands the surround the green and its a short par 3 that was near all the beer tents and the on course bar. The whole hole had people around it all day and you could here the roar of that crowd from anywhere on the course.

This was from Sunday, the day we were there. You'll probably have to watch a few times to see it but this kind of sums it up:




Rant following:

After walking around and seeing all the players a few of us decided to sneak up into the 17th whole grand stands and just join the party. Everyone there had been drinking all day it was just a ton of fun. There was some younger sexy girl doing one of the quiet signs near by and like all the drunk guys in the stands would shout her name and ask her to marry them etc everytime there wasn't a group on the green. She seemed a little embarrassed but took it well and tried her best not to spur them on. They'd also get a wave going after players would tee off. It start in the grand stand and go down the fairway of people lining the whole and when it got to the players most of them would participate which would get a big roar from the crowd.

All in all it was a good time except we saw some cops get pretty far out of line. Tigers in the last group and is on like the 14th whole so the 13 holes before them are pretty much vacated and while they were roped off at the start of the day, since they were done being used people were casually crossing them to get to the action quicker. Well we're walking across a whole and spot a bathroom that had a small line next to one of the fairways and we calmly walk up to it and stand in line with like 5 other people. We're all talking peacefully waiting our turn. Nobody is dicking around or being loud or drunk or anything close to that. Out from behind us, two cops walk up to us literally screaming. We all turn around and one yells at some guy. "You in the blue shirt, hey you in the blue shirt" he screams. We look back at them and they walk right by us to the next in line who just walked into the bathroom right as the cops started shouting. So we thought he had something wrong, maybe stole something or had a cell phone or camera (which weren't allowed) so we just stand there. Cop walks right up the the bath room, opens the door and literally grabs him by the back of his collar and throws him backwards out of the bathroom.

We're all taken back by this like WTF is going on. The kid (maybe 21 years old) is completely shocked and it takes him a second to even realize what had happened. The the cops started shouting to get off the grass because it was suppose to be roped off from the public. Then the two of them walked up the line that was still there kind of taken back by all this and started to shove the other two people in front of us and one guy fell over. We were all stunned and couldn't believe this was happening. I mean they just of easily coulda came up and said that this area was off limits or even just been dicks and been like "get the fuck on the other side of the ropes" which were like 50 yards away and we woulda moved. But no, as we were standing there they just came up and threw one guy to the ground by his collar and started shoving everyone else until we walked away. It was really messed up and it took us a second to even respond to them since it was so absurd which just provoked them even more.

Another incident involved one of the guys we were there with. We grabbed two beers and started to walk to the far end of the course. He's standing out of the way of the walk way just waiting for everyone to get there drinks before we start the hike and some old guy bumps into him knocking his beer on the ground. He gets a little bit on his shirt and my friend I believe stayed dry. Now normally, man law dictates that you offer to buy him a new beer and by basic common courtesy standards he could have at least apologized but he elected to look at my friend and raise his arms in the air like WTF and just turned and kept walking. Now a few people saw this and as my friend wasn't even moving, just standing and waiting and the other guy bumped into him they felt the same way I did and I heard one guy yell out "Damn man, how bout giving him the $5 so he can get a new one at least" and the guy responds as he continues to walk away "Ya, as soon as he washes my shirt". Once again, we were all in shock. Not at the fact that he didn't apologize because some people are just assholes. Or even the fact that he didn't elect to fork over the large sum of $5 to get him a new beer. We were shocked that he actually had the audacity to actually say that in front of a big group of people as he walked away. This actually pisses me off more than the police for some reason.

End Rant.

All in all it was a fun time despite the cops and some old asshole. Everyone had fun, we got to see some big name players up close. We got to drink outside on a nice day and watch a game we love. We saw and talked to a lot of the players and most of them were really cool with the crowd. One guy threw his driver backwards after a drive and someone in the crowd snagged it and didn't want to give it back and we almost died laughing at the conversation the player had with the guy. I'd really like to go to another even and again, I'm really sad this was the last Buick Open they'll have becuase now I'll probably have to travel a bit further to see something like this again or wait like 10 years for the Open to come back to Oakland Hills.

Good times.



-Me