Golf, in an unfamiliar town, during the coronavirus pandemic, is a welcoming sight

DUBLIN, Ohio — Tiger’s Saturday workday (71) was over before the noon whistle blew. He was doing the media carwash — this outlet, that one, much more orderly and civil in this age of corona — at 12 o’clock. Had this year unfolded as planned, he would have been at Royal St. George’s, for the British Open, in Sandwich, England. It gets warm there, but nothing like Saturday here. A roaster.

Nightfall comes late in Sandwich this time of year. It does here, too. Sunset on Saturday was scheduled for 9 p.m. and nothing, not even this virus, is changing that.

Ever trying going to bed with light still in the sky? It’s not easy. Tiger will have a semi-early tee time on Sunday morning. Early Saturday afternoon, he was heading toward his car/mobile locker room with the sun high in the sky. His kids were at home. The mall movie theaters are closed. There are no ballgames to watch. What the heck was he going to fill his afternoon with? No wonder the courses, here and everywhere, are packed. What is there to do?

I played nine holes Friday night. I mean, I started at 7:30 p.m., at a public course called Golf Club of Dublin. I played the back nine. Beautiful holes, seemingly built on long-ago farmland, but hemmed in by houses at every turn. As I marched down 10, I saw a slender Black man with a beautiful swing hitting balls out of his buddy’s golf bag on the back of the range. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, from maybe 100 yards away. Was it Tiger and Joe, enjoying the gloaming on a spectacular mid-July night? I got closer and closer, kind of worried about what I might say, if it was them. I didn’t want to intrude on their privacy.

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It wasn’t them, but I wouldn’t want to play the guy with the flowing follow-through with a shot a hole.

I played the nine holes. My phone died during it — and golf is better that way. On Friday afternoon, as he played his final holes, Ian Poulter was on his phone, on the course, likely trying to figure out where the cutline would fall. (Not a good look. He didn’t make it, btw.) Every hole I played at GC of D was good. Each one has a name. (“Risk and Hope,” “Pot of Gold” to end the day.) On each tee is one of those funky metal boxes, like you see in Ireland and Scotland. Beyond the Pot o’ Gold green is a solid farmhouse-style clubhouse and an enormous back lawn and patio. There was a country-rock, four-man band called North to Nashville doing its thing. Great band. There was some kind of lawn party seemingly sponsored by Maker’s Mark. 

The patrons de la maison, many of them, looked like Dustin Johnson, to a point. Many backward baseball caps, sunglasses on their brims. Guests were drinking, dancing, hanging, kissing. It might as well have been 1999. Masks were far and few between. Social distancing did not seem to be front-of-mind. I kept my distance. People want their old lives back, and many of these folks, clearly, were done waiting.

This is only my second event, in the six since Colonial. You can tell the Tour is taking the whole be-safe-or-go-home thing more seriously now than it was in early June. There was no equivalent scene at Muirfield Village G.C. Nothing like it.

Dublin is a city with 41,000 people and a charming downtown. When I first came here, in 1985, it was a farm town with some housing developments, but that’s all changed now. Downtown is bustling during a normal Memorial. You’ll see Jim Nantz here and Jim Mackay there and Jim Furyk getting ice cream. The Jims are all here this year, at the tournament. They’re not checking out the High Street shops.

On Tuesday night, I checked into the Marriott Columbus Northwest (catchy name!) where the players used to stay but few are this year. There’s a new place in Dublin, the AC hotel, where you can get your Marriott points and raspberry sorbet at the gift shop. The Tour officials were staying there, too. K.J. Choi did not get the memo. Choi, your 2007 Memorial winner, was in the Marriott lobby Saturday morning, suitcase in front of him, cellphone in hand. He shot 160 for the two rounds, but by Saturday afternoon, he was on the Muirfield Village driving range. He’s 50. He lives in Texas. He’s waiting for the senior tour to resume play.

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Hotel stays are funny things, these days. If you want soap, you have to ask for it, or at least that’s the policy at the Marriott Columbus Northwest. If you want housekeeping, you have to ask for it. One day, I asked for housekeeping to come but not to make the bed. Housekeeping came, made the bed, took my pillow. I got it back, but either way, it really wouldn’t matter. Not much does. If this spring and summer has taught us something, that’s got to be on the list.

Yes, I pack a pillow. (Is this what they call oversharing?) I do it whether I’m flying or driving, but it’s easier to bring those discretionary items when you’re in your own car. It took me about eight or nine hours with one stop to get here from Philadelphia, and the drive couldn’t be easier. Head west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, bear left on I-70. Say hi to West Virginia but make it quick.

You see more driving. Viktor Hovland, who’s been driving the Tour since Colonial, made that point the other day. I remember driving home from the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont on Route 30, the old Lincoln Highway. Went past Latrobe, Arnold’s hometown. Past Shanksville, Pa., where United flight 93 went down on Sept. 11, with all those heroes on board. There’s a lot of good ice cream on Lincoln Highway.

You can’t beat it. I’m talking about Lincoln Highway and all our other highways and byways, our streams, our mountains, our shorelines. I’m talking about summer in America. One good thing about this pandemic is the revival of the drive-in movie theater. The drive-in movie theater is an American invention, of course. The Columbus drive-in is showing “Dirty Dancing.” Before this summer is out, I’m hoping to see the original “Planet of the Apes” at a drive-in. Loved it in ’68. Charlton Heston, as Astronaut George Taylor: You blew it up!

Broadly speaking, here in golf, things are different, and things are the same. In the tournament’s press building, we reporters have been given green Memorial masks made of running-shirt material. You can clean your glasses with it, too. Barbara Nicklaus and husband are making the rounds here in golf carts, as per usual, typically driven by their lieutenant, Scott Tolley, a former newspaperman who got himself a straight job. If you work for Jack, it helps if you are fluent in Ohio State football. Scott is.

Jack, of course, is a charter member of the Ohio Golf Association Hall of Fame, and you could make the case that Tiger should be in it, too. Ben Curtis, native son and winner of the Ohio State amateur in 1999 and 2000 — and the British Open in 2003 — is a member of the class of ’18. But who has won more in Ohio than Tiger? Five times at the Memorial, plus the 2013 Presidents Cup at Muirfield Village. Eight times at Firestone, in Akron. And there he was, Friday afternoon, grinding out a birdie-birdie-par finish to make the cut on the number and earn himself his 8 a.m. Saturday morning tee time and his High Noon finish.

It’s 4 p.m. now. The leaders are making the turn. They’ll be done around 6. The sun is high. I just asked Siri to show me courses near here. 

Michael Bamberger may be reached at Michael_Bamberger@Golf.com.