Player's Championship at TPC Sawgrass

It's been almost five months since our last post and we have a lot of catching up to do.  According to our post log, April 13 was our last post.  Above we are posing in front of the club house at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, FL.  We volunteered at the Player's Championship (May) in which we saw Martin Kaymer eek out a big win as well as a big pay day ($1.5M).  Earlier (March), we volunteered at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, at Bay Hill in North Orlando.

The club house at TPC is just gorgeous. I can't seem to put my fingers on the location of the Bay Hill photos, so for now I'll just post the ones from TPC.

Today is actually September 4 and we are parked at the Munising, Mich Tourist RV Park right on Lake Superior.  I will post a blog later on our exploits in and around this area, which is just beautiful, and cool.  We left FL around June 2 from our winter place, Dade Battlefield Historic State Park in Bushnell.  After taking care of our annual RV maintenance at Alliance RV in Wildwood, FL, we drove straight to Fort Bragg to settle in for a couple weeks.  This would be our home while volunteering at the US Opens at Pinehurst, NC, but we'll tell you all about that in a later blog as well.

This pic is from the balcony of the club house looking out at the 18th hole beyond the lush sitting garden in the foreground.  I will say that the TPC venue was a rung higher than Bay Hill's.  Even the course, hole-for-hole, appeared to better manicured.  Just saying'...

The reason we were on the balcony was that TPC threw a big party for all the volunteers, about 1,500, with carving table entries of meat, buffet type set-up, and a band with open bars through out the evening.

Inside the club house I couldn't help taking a pic of a pic in the hallway of past Player's Champions.  I recognized most of them.  Pardon the flash glare....

Miss Nancy relaxing in big old leather chair checking up on her email and Facebook current gossip, on her new "smart" phone.  Thank you Natalie!  Supper will be served in 20 minutes.

Miss Nancy on hole 14, our hole where we marshaled, learning more about her smart phone.  It was a practice day, so we could relax a little.

Walking along the 18th green, towards the tee...the club house would be behind me.

Above, the "Bluff at 18".  Every day during the four days of competition, the PGA/club sets up about 200 folding chairs.  If you get here within a couple of hours or so of the days last players arriving here, and are lucky enough to find unoccupied chairs, and sit in them till the last player finishes, you get to keep the chairs.  We got lucky.  WOW!  What a concept!  

Miss Nancy in her volunteer outfit walking alongside the famous 17th hole, the Island Green hole at TPC.  As expected, it also has the most spectators every day.

It wasn't so bad this day, as it was still early, noon, and the "lushes" hadn't had enough to drink yet.

Above, 18 looking back to the tee area...

Above, the 17th looking to the club house...lots of fans...

The 17 tee box, looking at the Island Green in the distance, in front of a million spectators.  I have read that the pros consider this tee shot one of the most intimidating of any tee shot they have on the tour, right up there with par 3 at the Stadium Course in Tuscon, AZ.

 So, that about wraps up our fun times at the beautiful TPC course at Sawgrass.  This venue was a about two hours from our wintering location in Bushnell.  So, instead of driving this round trip five times, we opted to stay at the local Hampton Inn for four nights just south of Jacksonville.  drive from here down the coast to St Augustine was a real treat as well.  So, till the next blog, RVing Beach Bums signing off from Munising, Michigan.