Graeme ‘Scotty’ Scott, Tournaments Manger for the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia is on the ground at Firestone CC as Rules Official for another WGC Bridgestone Invitational event. Check out Scotty’s wrap up of what his first two days in the States entailed as he prepares to officiate the best golfers in the world.

WGC-Bridgestone Invitational – Tuesday 1 August

It was a bit of a shock to the system getting off the plane in Cleveland last night to be greeted by a very balmy evening in the mid 20°C after departing Melbourne on a chilly 5° morning, 24 hours earlier.

However, I can’t say that I was complaining at being in short sleeves again heading out to Firestone this morning after several months of pulling on jumpers to go to work throughout June and July.

It was great, as always, to meet up with my good friend John Paramor from the European Tour who tends to be our designated driver when we visit Firestone and to also meet Pauli van Meersbergen from the Sunshine Tour who is having her first trip to the WGC Bridgestone Invitational.

Today we headed out there at 8.30am to have a look at the course, meet the other Rules Officials and familiarise ourselves with the location of the Rules trailer.

As we pulled into the parking lot I noticed that Jason Day’s mobile truck home was in its usual spot just around the corner from our office.

The Tournament Director for this week is Slugger White, who is one of three Vice Presidents of Rules and Competition for the PGA TOUR. I have had the pleasure of working with Slugger on many occasions with the most recent being the World Cup of Golf at Kingston Heath last year. John Lillvis was the advance official or R1 for the week. His role is to arrive at the venue one week ahead of time and work closely with the operations team to ensure that all tournament infra-structure, of which there is a great deal, is positioned in such a way to have as minimal impact on play as possible. R1 is also responsible for marking the golf course in terms of defining margins of water hazards and the like.

Joining us on the Rules Committee and being responsible for course set up each day will be Dillard Pruitt and Ken Tackett from the PGA Tour.

After meeting everyone and generally catching up it was time to grab a bit of breakfast before heading out onto the course.

JP and I took a spin around the course together and almost the first player that we came across was Jason Day who was out practicing by himself with caddie and coach Col Swatton. It is always a pleasure to catch up with Jason who is always keen to hear about what is happening back in Australia.

Although there is quite a bit of Temporary Immovable Obstructions out there, the course is what we would term as clean in that there is very little else out there and this is reflected in how simple the Local Rules are for the week.

Shot Link is a massive part of PGA Tour coverage and is the system used to provide the statistics on how far the player hits the ball and how far they are from the hole. For improved accuracy they have installed additional camera towers near a number of greens and some of these may well come into play this week. During our trip around the course we provide additional feedback to JL on which towers, if any, may require either side relief should a player find that the tower intervenes on their line of play. Extra pairs of eyes are really helpful with the likes of this as it can be easy to miss something when you are doing it on your own.

Having a comprehensive weather forecast for any tournament week is essential to assist with planning the daily schedules. Unfortunately this can be a stormy part of the year for Akron and the forecast we received this morning was for rain and storms in the afternoon on both Thursday and Friday. In view of this a decision was reached to bring forward the tee times for both days by two hours giving a first tee time of 7.30am. By doing this it is hoped that we can get as much play as possible completed before the storms are due to arrive.

After lunch I went for another drive around the course and this time met with Marc Leishman and defending Australian PGA Champion, Harold Varner.

The Firestone course is in absolutely fantastic condition with beautiful fairways and chewy 100mm rough.

If the rains do come then it will make the course play longer but it may take some of the sting out of the greens which are running pretty quick.

Tomorrow we have our tournament meeting in the morning and then we will have a final look around before round one on Thursday.

WGC-Bridgestone Invitational – Wednesday 2 August

Another beautiful day here in Akron Ohio with possible storms forecast for late afternoon/early evening.

Traditionally we have our tournament meeting on Wednesday morning and this involves representatives from all the key stakeholder groups attending and providing some information on the week ahead. This includes Rules staff, the Operations team, CBS television, Course Staff, PGA TOUR entertainment and Firestone Country Club management.

Once this meeting is over the Rules Committee stay on for a second meeting to discuss the draft Local Rules and the roster for the week. I will be based down at my usual spot covering holes 3-6 and will also be doing the checking role before play commences each day. This involves following behind the set up team and ensuring that everything is in the correct place on the tees and greens and that the bunkers have all been raked and the rakes positioned in the spot least likely to affect play.

This afternoon there are two events scheduled to commemorate the late, great Arnold Palmer. Firstly a walk from the clubhouse area down the side of 18 and then across to 16 green will take place with the money raised by “Arnie’s Army” to be donated to the Children’s Hospitals in the area. A bronze plaque celebrating the three wins that Arnie had at Firestone during his career has been fixed to the stone bridge short and to the right of 16 green and Arnie’s daughter will be there this afternoon for its unveiling.

A final tour of the course didn’t raise any further queries and so it was time to head back to the hotel to iron my shirts for the tournament.

The PGA TOUR guys are always great at arranging for us to attend a local sporting event during tournament week and tonight it was a Double A baseball game between the Rubber Ducks and the Yard Goats. These names may sound weird but these players are only a short step away from the Major League and it was a fun night out. To cap it off, Slugger was invited to throw the opening pitch which he did with his usual class and style.

We managed to avoid any storms today but we did have a series of rumbles during the game. Let’s hope that they stay away until we finish play tomorrow as any delay on day one always has a big impact on the rest of that day and quite often every other day as well.