The BMW — one of the FedEx Cup playoff events — is unusually intimate because the field is smaller and the spectator-to-player ratio is lower than at a regular Tour stop. At one point I noticed that Tommy Fleetwood and a handful of fans had developed an ongoing in-joke about what conditioner he uses to get his hair to look like that. That’s definitely not happening at a Yankees game.
Jon Tattersall, my long-suffering swing coach, was also my guide for the day, breaking down how these tournaments are set up (so that’s what goes on in the Titleist equipment truck) and introducing me to many of his coaching colleagues. I couldn’t help but notice a certain melancholy, though, as Tattersall hauled me around. I asked him if everything was okay. Was it me? Had someone noticed he was reduced to hanging around with a lowly journalist? What was up? “It’s hard,” he said. “It’s hard being here but not having a player here.”
Tattersall, of course, does a lot more with his day than try to make a stick out of an idiot writer like me. He works with real players, pros with whom he invests hundreds of hours, specifically so he can coach them through to events like the BMW Championship. He’s had guys make it here before. He just didn’t get here in 2019. He was happy to show me around — I think. He just wished one of his guys had given him a reason to stay. It’s a reminder that for all the fun of an event like this, for all the novelty, this is still a competition at the highest level. This is as good as it gets.
“Next year, I hope,” he said. “Just gotta work harder.”
Being at Medinah blew me away — and the tournament had yet to even begin! I decided to spend the rest of my day taking in everything I could — and, just in case, keeping a safe distance from any and all Furyks.
Will Leitch is a columnist for GOLF, a contributing editor at New York Magazine, and the founder of Deadspin.
