“It’s going cuh-ray-zee in here,” says one trailer’s security attendant, who’s in charge of tagging and shelving what feels like “a million” mobile devices.
“I would not want to be in charge of this logistical nightmare,” says one guy in Oakleys as he hands his Droid over to be bagged.
Unlike the PGA Tour, which relented in February and now allows mobile devices at its tournaments, the United States Golf Association will not admit anything to the U.S. Open that takes pictures, emits electronic sounds or otherwise distracts from a golfer’s concentration. This rule applied to transistor radios decades ago, according to a USGA spokesman, and it goes for iPhones today.
No screens. Only greens.
“Do you know how bad it is? Being unhooked from your device?”
Dave Kushner is leaving early on the first day of the tournament because he wants to check his smartphone.
“It’s a nightmare,” says Kushner, who lives in Ashburn and works at a technology company. “I have a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old at home getting into more [trouble] than you can believe. It’s the anxiety of wanting to check in.”
Yes, yes, the horror, the horror. We’re long past PDA addiction. (An addict can eventually figure out how to do without.) On the links Thursday, the handicap is less golf-ish and more primal.
People can’t research Retief Goosen’s past rankings.
People don’t know where their spouses are.
People aren’t even sure what time it is.
So they watch golf. Look: An entire gallery of people, in bleachers at hole No. 4, staring in the same direction, focusing on Hiroyuki Fujita as he lines up for a short putt. They are intent in unison. There are no bowed heads or pecking thumbs. The scarcity of preoccupation is mesmerizing.
Putt — and he misses. “Ohhh.”
Detachment and concentration, though, beget confusion.
“Three years ago, we came and, of course, we got separated as we were leaving and lost one of our friends,” says Richmond resident Brenda Kyle, who’s wearing a shamrock-colored polo. “We ended up waiting at the gate for 45 minutes. He was mad. You’re totally lost here if you don’t have prearranged times to meet.”
Lost. Or unfindable. Initial separation anxiety aside, the U.S. Open is a spa retreat for the chronically wired.
Real estate agent Greg Phillips tapped away on his satellite-connected laptop the whole ride down from Frederick. Then he put the computer and his mobile device into his friend’s trunk, entered the grounds, got a beer and sidled up to the fairway of the fifth hole, unencumbered.
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