Covering one round of a Champions Tour event

So the PGA's "senior" golf tour will roll nearby next weekend and we have a guy from around here who's got his card.

I can probably wedge in a Friday drive-by over there and wondered what approach to take.

I thought maybe a tick-tock of the guy's round with sights and sounds, etc. Report it on Friday, write it Friday night and run it on Sunday with some pix I can take from the gallery. Could make a decent page, especially if he had a good round – and he's capable of that.

Anybody got a better idea they'd like to share?

 

what's a tick-tock of a guy's round?

sights and sounds?

why write it friday before you know how he does saturday?

am i missing something?

 

Def: Tick-tock: A story that uses a chronological ordering of anecdotes, based on the passage of time (usually/often) in a single day.

Example:

5:45 a.m. – Hejira Henry always rises early on first-round Fridays.

"I go to bed early and get up to work on my putting for a while, even if I have an early tee time. It's all about establishing a routine."

6:25 a.m. – Breakfast. "Beer and cigarettes, breakfast of champions," he says.

(rinse, repeat endlesslessly.)

I'd probably want to set as much of it down as quickly as possible after simply because I have a lot of other stuff I'll have to do on Saturday. Obviously, yes, I'd need to update with his second round – but the idea isn't to get locked into his performance per se. It's about trying to leverage the proximity of the appearance into a story that might be interesting for the average reader.

 

I like the idea...

 

If you can, call him the night before to see how nervous he is. That is when I would be going crazy if I were him. Once I am up, I am up and ready to go.

Is this his first event?

 

Get a buddy to go out and yell "you da man" in every one of this golfer's backswings and report on the golfer's reactions each time---then have him sit down at the end of the round to "write" a guest column on his experience.

Then, Saturday, get the 3:16 guy in the colored afro wig to caddy for this guy, and have HIM write a guest column at the end of the day.

Finally, on Sunday, get 10 of the most prominent guys in the field to give you their favorite anecdote of your featured player, to include all the time that someone like Hale Irwin or Larry Nelson looks at you after you ask your question and says, "Who?"

Or forget featuring this guy and do a fun piece where you ask a good sampling of players the following four survey questions, and building part of a page around that:

1. What do you think of the new Star Trek movie (even if they haven't seen it, certainly they have an opinion)?

2. Why was Miss California right/wrong to opine that marriage should be between a man and a woman?

3. When it comes to Manny and A-Rod, is Joe Torre guilty by association or not?

4. Who's the most annoying fellow Champions Tour player to get paired with, other than Chi Chi Rodriguez?

5. What's the worst instance of cheating during a tournament you've ever witnessed? You can include yourself, if so warranted.

 

I thought T.O. retired the tick-tock.

Yeah don't stop.

 

What does he do the night before, after practice, and then in the morning before the round?

Screw the round. Look at him off the course and get into his head then. Quirks? Superstitions? Huge breakfast so he can stop at the turn to lighten the load and read Golf Digest? Hookers and booze to ease the nerves?

Have fun with it.

 

The real question Henry is what kind of access are you going to have.

 

If his subject acquiesces -- and unless he's a total assclown, I can't see why he wouldn't -- he'll have damn good access, spnited.

The Champions Tour is probably the most fan-friendly, media-accessible professional sport out there. They set up rounds with pros and reporters during the pro-am or practice rounds. Not only do they make their players available, but the players make themselves available.

And it's not just the journeymen. We had a media day for our event in Newport Beach back in January. Bernhard Langer, the defending champion, was playing in Hawaii the day before. Not long after he wrapped up the victory, he hopped on a red-eye and flew to Orange County, crashed for a few hours, then was at the course that afternoon for interviews.

These guys get it.

And HH, you're on the right track here. Stick with him and observe, observe, observe.

 

I would ask the geezers how long they expect to live.

 

HH: I must know -- was "wedge in" an on-purpose golf reference in the original post?

Frank: I don't know if I like the way you're throwing around "geezers" since the minimum age for the Champions Tour is 50.