each of the three days, meeting every player, caddie, official and
volunteer who stepped onto the teeing ground, answering whatever
questions they asked, and announcing each player to the spectators
who gathered to watch the best of the best tee off.
Some of them I knew from my time as golf coach at the Uni-
versity of Virginia, although with the march of time, that period from
1989 to 2004 continues to recede further into the past. I will admit to being somewhat
flattered that world-class players Webb Simpson and Bill Haas (Wake Forest), and
Brandt Snedeker (Vanderbilt) actually remembered me.
Webb laughed when I told him he should have come to Virginia to play for me,
and he laughed again when I said, “that’s the same way you laughed 16 years ago
when I said you should come to Virginia to play for me!”
Snedeker, who graduated from Vandy in 2004, s