It was a very chaotic Saturday at the WM Phoenix Open
@Stevengd on X/Getty Images
Hello, friends, and happy Saturday from the WM Phoenix Open! I have observed more chaos in the last eight hours on-site than I have cumulatively in the last decade of my life. I came to this event last year, but today was truly on another level. More on that later. Despite all of the mayhem here at TPC Scottsdale, I had an awesome day. My sister, Ellen, came out for a few hours, and my cousin, Chris, is here for a bachelor party. And I got to spend a little time with both of them!
In typical sister fashion, Ellen is wearing my sweatshirt. But I borrowed a pair of socks from her this morning, so I guess it evens out.
The chaos
What I witnessed in the first half of the day today at TPC Scottsdale was truly on another level. I saw men bleeding from the face, people napping on muddy hills, adults knocking each other over because they couldn’t walk straight. Picture the first few minutes of trying to exit a sold-out concert and multiply it by like 15. That’s where we were at.
For reference, the walk from the practice area to the 16th tee has taken me about 12 minutes all week. Today? Forty-five (45). The place was packed. A little later on, I witnessed a fan storm the 16th hole. He dove into a green-side bunker, ran around and was promptly arrested about 15 seconds later.
Things started to feel very hectic when my sister sent me this text.
Here’s what things were looking like on-site by the time the gates were closed and alcohol sales were stopped.
The chaos had started to become a serious safety issue. People were getting trampled in the crowded areas, a handful of people collapsed and fences had to be cut to open up extra space for the massive crowds to move.
On the spectrum of anti-fun to lover of mayhem, I probably fall somewhere in the middle, but I definitely started to feel like I was stuck in an overcrowded fraternity basement by mid-afternoon. There was real concern from security that people might die on site, especially because so many people were getting stuck in the crowds, so everything was put to a halt.
The goal of shutting the gates was to let the crowd begin to thin out as people started to leave, and by the time I made my way back to the media center at about 5:00 p.m., the crowds (outside of the 16th hole) felt much more like a normal golf tournament density wise.
Fan reactions
I was curious to see what people on site thought about all of this, so I took to Twitter to see their thoughts. Here’s what I saw.
Obviously, some people loved the chaos today. A handful of people who have worked here year after year said today was the craziest they’ve seen it. Will things here change a bit next year because of today? Probably not, but only time will tell.
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