Hello,
I ended up having an interesting couple of days at the USGA 4-ball, as I got a call Sunday to work as a spotter for Fox.
1. As for my duties, on Tuesday, I accompanied writer-reporter Shane Bacon for the back nine of the Black-Joseph/Buecking-Enloe QF match, collecting yardages and clubs, verbally relaying them to the producer, handing Shane post-its, then signaling him clubs on Par 3s and wherever else I could, then after the competitors were greenside, I'd move off ahead to the next hole and await the tee shots to do it again.
2. On Wednesday, I performed about "half" of that function in the finals match, this time only collecting yardages for two of the players, reporting those to the producer, then hanging next to Curtis Strange during the approaches (and Par 3s) relaying club-signals from another guy to the producers and Curtis on holes 7 through the end of the match on #16.
3. Before heading out to the course to work those duties, I got to spend a half hour with Paul Azinger, being his chauffeur to catch some of the early action in the final Baxter-Buchanan/Cigna-Warnquist match. We had an illuminating talk about swings and what he looks for to prepare for the commentary; in particular we had a laugh or two about how much anxious focus golfers acquire as they go on in life and when one is young, we don't even "see" the trouble, and how the young players today are so much more technically focused and taught routine than anybody who's 40 or older. He and all of the Fox staff crew, inside and out, were really relaxed and friendly.
4. The funny thing is that with these duties, I really had no mind or attention for most of the golf that I was right in the middle of (or half the time 200 yards out from); I watched almost no greenside action.
If it bears same , I'll yield some further observations later on
cheers
vk