Summer Postcard: A major golf tournament invades the sleepy suburbs

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of postcards that Daily Princetonian sports staff writers and others wrote about their experiences in the wide world of sports this summer. Keep reading through the next few weeks for more dispatches from across the country and around the world.

Whenever I leave my house, I pass my high school, right across the street from where I live. As I left home for work one morning this July, I noticed the parking lot full of vehicles and golf carts roaming between the rows of cars. It was an unusual sight for my high school in July — too early for freshman orientation, and definitely not football season yet.

On the way back from work, I saw the same sight; curious about the scene, I turned into the parking lot and pulled up to the school, which sits on a hill overlooking the parking lot. There I saw rows upon rows of Mercedes-Benz S550 sedans, Mercedes-Benz G-Class SUVs and one full row of Mercedes-Benz commercial vans. All of them had Florida license plates and were marked “OFFICIAL VEHICLE.” As I drove out of the parking lot, I pulled up next to one of the men patrolling in golf carts and asked him why these cars were there. He hesitated for a second, as if he were revealing a big secret, and then said, “PGA Championship.” Of course.

From Aug. 11 to Aug. 14, my hometown of Johns Creek, Ga., and the resident Atlanta Athletic Club hosted the PGA Championship, golf’s fourth and final major tournament of the calendar year. With my family, I attended the final round at the Atlanta Athletic Club, less than 10 minutes from my house.

In the days leading up to the tournament, signs — both literal and figurative — started to pop up in our usually sleepy suburb of Atlanta, reminding us of the upcoming tournament. A large electronic traffic sign showed up along our main thoroughfare at the beginning of July warning of terrible traffic the week of Aug. 8. A pedestrian bridge was built over the main road, connecting parking lots to the club without bringing traffic in our city to a standstill. My high school parking lot was suddenly filled with expensive German cars. For once, something was happening in Johns Creek.

On Sunday morning, I woke up early with my family to head over to the tournament. Here, something interesting had to happen. Parking near the Atlanta Athletic Club was at a premium and one had to pay a pretty hefty sum to park in the church and school lots. For the general public, the nearest available lot was at the Gwinnett Center — a local arena where a minor league hockey team plays — and shuttle coaches ran continuously between the arena and the club. For my family and me, this meant driving away from the Atlanta Athletic Club to get there. But there was no other option, so we took the shuttle.

The final round of the 2011 PGA Championship featured a relatively unknown cast of golfers. Tiger Woods was most notable for his absence — he was cut after Friday’s round for only the third time in a major. Rory McIlory, the reigning U.S. Open champion, started and finished Sunday far behind in the field while nursing an injured wrist. Phil Mickelson finished the day at even par, tied for 19th. This actually made for easier viewing of the more famous golfers, as the huge crowds that would have followed Woods and Mickelson had they been on top of the leaderboards were instead spread out. We got to get up close and personal with McIlroy and Mickelson, following them for several holes.

Attending a major golf tournament felt like a combination of going to Disneyworld and watching a cross-country race. It possessed the carnival-like atmosphere of a theme park and the hurried walking and temporary shortcuts through the course of a 5K race. Many people were decked out in golfing gear. Many people were decked out in college gear — this was still the South, after all, and college football was less than a month away. It didn’t hurt that one of the leaders, Jason Dufner, was an alumnus of Auburn and resident of Auburn, Ala. — I heard “War Eagle!” quite a bit as Dufner climbed his way to first place.

By the time the leaders made their way to the notoriously difficult par-4 18th hole, we had retreated to the front of the club to watch the final few strokes on TV — the stands around the final pin had filled up far earlier in the afternoon, and it was nearly impossible to see the green. Keegan Bradley of Jupiter, Fla., had erased a five-stroke lead by Jason Dufner, highlighted by a dramatic 50-foot putt for birdie on 17 to eventually force a playoff. In the ensuing three-hole playoff, featuring the most difficult holes on the course — the final three — Bradley was one under par to defeat Dufner and become the first player to win his first major tournament since Ben Curtis at the 2003 British Open.

For someone who has never lived in a big city, only in the suburbs of big cities, it felt unusual to have that spotlight on my hometown. ESPN was in Johns Creek. Tiger Woods was in Johns Creek. I hope the rest of the city enjoyed it as much as I did, because unless the PGA Championship comes back, nothing that interesting or exciting will ever happen again in Johns Creek. Ever.