Watching Justin Rose and Phil Mickelson during my Barclays Transportation Committee Experience

by Len
(East Northport, NY)

Being a New Yorker and a Phil Mickelson fan, (like most of New York), I watched Phil Mickelson and Justin Rose tee off at the 1st hole on Sunday of the Barclays. In between jobs we have the chance to see some golf so a few hours later, after making a few runs around town and just having finished lunch I decided to go over to the 18th hole and watch them finish before going back to the trailer to see where I was on the run list log for the next job.

In what turned out to be a memorable highlight, Justin Rose, needing a tap in for his par to finish up, marked his ball and motioned to Phil to go ahead and putt. Phil being 3 feet away was a little perplexed but he went along. I has a sense that the crowd was about ready to give Justin the business (or boos) seeming like he was putting pressure on our boy Phil to make his putt. Low and behold Justin's caddie runs up just as Justin marks his ball and puts his Olympic gold medal around his neck, and with the crowd going wild, makes his tap in putt. A very memorable moment indeed!
With that I made my way back to the trailer and related the story to my fellow volunteers. Upon completion, Ray, our supervisor said, "Funny you should mention Justin Rose, you're next up for a job, and the job is to take him to his private jet at Republic. I went with another volunteer to where the players park and as we waited for Justin to arrive we saw Phils caddie, "Bones", in the parking lot putting Phil's clubs into his car. I yelled over to him, "Hey, was that planned or spontaneous?". He laughed and said they started talking about it on the 17th hole. The caddies told Justin that if he had a tap in on the 18th that they wanted to put his gold medal around his neck and putt out with it on to see the crowds reaction. I asked, "Did Phil know?" he said he didn't but caught on quick when Justin marked his tap in putt. With that Justin appeared and I told him that he really had us NYers going when he marked his putt. I told him that we would probably have booed the shit out of him, but when he put on the gold medal he won us all over. He laughed and we drove to his private jet. Just before he got into his jet I told him that he just gave me a story for a lifetime and he smiled and thanked us for all our help and got into his jet and flew back to England.

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