Thanks, Petesie. I did tell that to
Angel, but she's just a real softie.
Remember, I warned you that this would be a non-mongering, non-touristy TR. I'm apologizing for this next entry in advance.
Thursday – February 16th
Before I left for the Philippines last June, I went to the LPGA Sybase Match Play Championship held in Gladstone, NJ. Back home, I usually attend both tournaments held in New Jersey, and I go every day, including the practice rounds. I’m a big fan of Japan’s
Ai Miyazato, and over the years I’ve come to know both
Ai and her caddie, Mick Seaborn. In the U.S., the attendance at LPGA events is small compared to Asia, and the crowds tend to follow only the American players. For that reason. I was able to follow
Ai easily, and even to ride in a cart with her and Mick during a practice round once. At the event last year, I told
Ai that I was moving to The Philippines, and hoped to see her in Pattaya. I had mentioned all this to
Angel, but I think she may have taken it with a grain of salt. As most of you guys probably know, golf is extremely popular in Thailand. As I expected, the crowds at the Siam Country Club were much larger than those in the U.S., and the focus of the fans was naturally on the Asian players. Security is fairly tight, so I wasn’t sure if I could even get close enough for her to see me.
I knew that
Ai was teeing off around 12:30, so
Angel and I arrived at the course at 11:00 AM. I headed right to the practice putting area, and waited. After about 10 minutes, I spotted
Ai walking from the clubhouse towards the greens. In Thailand, the more popular Asian players usually walk quickly, looking straight ahead, and trying to avoid eye contact with the fans. They know that they’ll be mobbed if they stop. As she passed, I yelled, “Miyazato san,” in a loud voice. Her head whipped around, she saw me and flashed me one of her brilliant smiles. “Hey, hi. How are
you?” she said. Mick followed her onto the practice area, and when he saw me leaning against the railing that separated the fans from the players, he walked over and shook my hand. “Are you over here now, mate?” he asked. It was then that
Angel knew that I hadn’t been BS-ing. Over the course of the next 4 days, I wasn’t able to have any interaction with
Ai, other than some nods as she walked from greens to the next tee, but Mick and I got a chance to talk a few times. I plan to see them again in New Jersey when I visit home in May. (I know you guys don’t want to hear about this crap, but Petesie asked me to stretch this out.)
Well,
Angel has no interest in golf, and even though she’s so much younger than me, she’s not exactly a walker. While I walk at least 6 kilometers a day,
Angel will take a tricycle from the kitchen to the bathroom. (Okay, maybe that’s a little exaggerated, but you get the idea.) We had talked about the fact that she’d never make it through the whole day, so she had Nia standing by for a phone call. She made it through the first 2 holes, and called Nia to come pick her up in a taxi.
Here’s a note to my buddy, Pacman. In my thread about living in The Philippines, we had a discussion about the fact that I refuse to use sunscreen. Paccers had dire predictions for my health and life if I ventured into this tropical sun unprotected. I had said I would attempt to inure myself to the sun, but Pac felt I wouldn’t have the patience for it. Well, all I can say is that I was in that Thai sun from 11:00 AM until 6:00 PM for all 4 days except for Friday. On Friday, it got suddenly very cloudy, and there was a rain delay of an hour and a half. After that, the sun came out again. I’m happy to report that I had no problem with it.
I’ll get off this golf thing in just a bit, but I just want to hit a couple of points. A member of the Royal Thai Police is assigned to each player for the entire 4 days. They mostly clear a path for the players as they walk from one green to the next tee, and as they leave the 18th green to head for the clubhouse. On the 3rd day, as I walked along, following
Ai, I was standing outside the ropes parallel to her as she and her caddie were waiting for the players ahead of her to clear the green before she could hit. I decided to walk up ahead to the green rather than just stand around. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a policeman make a hand gesture at me. I thought he was motioning me to stop walking so as not to disturb the player. I smugly thought to myself, “Look, sonny, I know when to move and when not to move on a golf course. What do you know about golf?” I stopped, but then I saw that he was walking up to me, and I thought, “Uh oh. What did I do, or what does he think I did?” I’m still not used to the motion of holding the arm out with the hand palm down, and bending it 2 or 3 times at the wrist in a downward motion. In America, that would mean stop, sit down or get down. In Asia, it means “come here”. The policeman walked up to me and offered me a nice cold bottle of water. I thanked him profusely, and explained that I had water with me. The first day
Ai had played against
Paula Creamer, a blue-eyed, blonde American. The next day, her opponent was
Anna Nordqvist, another blue-eyed blonde. On this day, she was playing against Yani Tseng from Taiwan. Because of the rain delay from day 2, they were playing in groups of 3, and Amanda Blumenherst, another blue-eyed blonde was with them, but I guess that the cop figured it was too much of a coincidence that I would be following 3 blondes who happened to be playing against
Ai Miyazato each day. In fact, on day 4, when we saw each other, we smiled and the policeman came over and said, “You’re following
Ai Miyazato, right?” The other thing I wanted to say concerns the make-up of the crowd. On the final day of the tournament,
Ai was matched with Yani Tseng. They were the final pairing, with
Ai leading the field, and Yani one stroke behind her. If there were 400 people walking along with this group, 150 were Japanese, 200 were Taiwanese, and the remaining 50 were Thai or Westerners. At the first hole, I met 2 middle-aged Japanese men, and we walked around together, speaking in both Japanese and English. It was a nice touch, and added to my enjoyment of the day. (Unfortunately,
Ai lost by 1 stroke, finishing in sole 2nd place.)
A quick question – I had always heard BMs make reference to the “Boys in Brown”. Is that the Pattaya police? Having seen the Royal Thai Police dressed in blue, I figured that is the case.
I’m sorry that I filled this space with just golf, but that really was the purpose of my trip. Tomorrow I’ll try to give my impressions of Thailand in general and Pattaya in particular, and also
Angel’s feelings about the same.
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Good to hear from you here, Pac.
