Saturday at the US Women's Open

Jul 2, 2007 at 8:23 PM
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Here's a rundown of my first day at the US Women's Open

I arrived at Pine Needles at about 11:45 and found my way to the entrance, which was oddly positioned at the 15th hole.
After grabbing pairings sheet and taking a quick look of the course map, I decided that it was time to go hunt down the LPGA's reigning phenom, Michelle Wie.
I wasn't really prepared for the layout of the course and I pretty much had to walk hole by hole from my starting position at 15, past 16, 17 & 18 before I finally crossed over to hole 1.
I paused for a while on hole 18 because I noticed that group contained the #1 Women's player in the world; Lorena Ochoa. Since my little sister had always tried to model her swing after Lorena's I stopped and watched her hit a few shots.
After spending a little time watching Ochoa's group, I jumped ahead to the Michelle Wie's group. To my dismay, Wie had already withdrawn from the tournament. It was not a total loss, however, as this group also contained Natalie Gulbis, a golf well known among males 18-35 from her appearances in magazines like FHM and her reality show on the Golf Channel.
I decided to follow Gulbis' group for a while, though occasionally floating back to Ochoa's group or jumping ahead to watch Erica Blasberg, who was having a very, very solid round.
During the course of following the groups, I found out the plan for the 2nd / 3rd round break. Apparently, they were going to let all the golfers finish, then shut down the course for 2 hours, and then start back up with groups going off both the first tee and the 10th tee.
After watching Ochoa's group drive on the 9th hole, I figured there was no point on just watching them finish and then sitting around while the rest of the groups came through the 9th hole. So instead, I kept walking back and forth between the 8th hole and the 9th hole, following groups for a number of shots as they went through.
It was during this period that I witnessed Kelly Cavanaugh's "11th Hour' (a.k.a 18th Hole) bogey that cost her a spot in the 3rd round. Here's the full rundown: [ Tough Final Hole for Kelly Cavanaugh ]
After the final group went through, I made my way back to the main gate, figuring that's where I could get a set of the new pairings sheets when they were released. I sat down under a tree, turned on my ipod, and waited, for about an hour and half, before the pairings were released.
The latest pairings showed Paula Creamer teeing off in about 15 minutes, off the 10th tee, so I made my way back over there.

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I made it to midway up the 10th fairway before Paula started her 3rd round. A few young girls next to me couldn't figure out which one was Paula, because Karen Icher was wearing pink while Paula was decked out in Carolina Blue. They seemed quite pleased when I pointed her out to them.
I started following Paula from that hole forward, moving and shifting with a gallery of probably around 60-70 people. The viewing angles at Pine Needles are far from ideal, but it was a fairly small gallery (for the size of Paula' fame) so I got to see a number of golf shots up close.
I followed Paula through the back nine and noticed the number of people following her was shrinking. At about hoel 15, they put up a "Weather Advisory" warning, but I figured seeing one of the world's best golfers this close was worth risking it.
When she made the turn (from 18 to 1 in this case) the gallery had dwindled down to about 15-20. From this point on, it was quite simple to get great angles to watch the golfers make their way around the front nine.
Though Paula looked like she was making a move, after birdieing the #1, she ended up bogeying two and the wheels came off the cart a little bit. For the rest of the round she appeared to have some minor troubles with the flat stick and could never really put together enough good shots to make a charge up the leaderboard.
The plan was to finish up following Paula for the full 18, and then work my way back through some of the other groups to the exit at hole. At hole 13, however, they blew the horn for darkness.
As I watched the girls gather their things, I felt the first drop of rain. I knew I was in trouble and began a light jog back towards the 15th hole. It wasn't long, however, before the heavens opened up and I was caught in a driving rain storm. It poured down for the 10 minutes it took me to reach my car, but had pretty much subsided by the time I got there.
I crushed a protein bar and soda i left in a cooler in my car, and then headed home. I had a smile on my face from a tremendous day at the course.

That's my rundown of my Saturday at the US Women's Open. Stay tuned for Sunday...