Open Week with 'Wattsy'

A look back at how Ian Watts, Tour Manager for Taylor Made, coped on the Workshop Van at St Andrews...

Ian Watts and Martin Park
Thu, 3 Aug 2000

For The Tour Department at Taylor Made adidas Golf, Open Championship preparations begin early. Our new Tour support vehicle arrived from Loch Lomond on the Thursday preceding Open week so that it may be given it's spot at the practice range by The R&A. My week began by travelling to St Andrews on the Friday to check on the location of our vehicle and to make sure every thing was in place. I also met up with our USPGA Tour representative George Willett who attended the Championship to assist our team with our US based players.

On arriving at St Andrews on the Friday I discovered that our vehicle, measuring 14.5 meters long, 2.5 meters wide and weighing 24 tons was facing the wrong way. Our driver would not be returning until Sunday when it would be to late to have it moved, by then all other the other vehicles would have been positioned. It had to be turned round so, despite not having a full HGV license, I was the one elected to do the job. There was a car park at the end of the narrow track where the truck was parked so after a few more turns than were required I managed to switch it round. I think I'll keep my day job though!

Sunday began at 6.30am for breakfast at the Hotel we had for the week, which was about twenty minutes from the course. We didn't need to be worried about the traffic, as we would be at the course before the roads got busy. We arrived at the course for 7.30 when we began setting up the vehicle. It has an expanding side, which pushes the width out to 4.5 meters. This creates an enormous working area inside the vehicle. It usually takes us around two hours to set the vehicle up properly ready for our first player to arrive. It has to be cleaned also which is usually quite an exercise. With all of our team in place, Peter Powell Tour Technician, Iain Steele - Senior Tour Representative, George Willett - PGA Tour representative, Wayne Stephens and Irek Myskow, we hold a meeting to go over plans and itineraries for the week ahead in the meeting room which is at one end of our vehicle.

Top of our agenda is the Prototype driver. With the demand at it's greatest we ascertain what components we have to work with and which players are lined up to test the product. We discuss particular player's specifications and make sure we have the right clubs ready to be tested. We also go over work we did at Loch Lomond the previous week and check on what players we need to check on. After a busy day working with some of the players who came over from the qualifying courses we finish up around 7 o'clock and get back to the hotel for a cool beer and some food.

Monday was a day when we made our final preparations for the two busy practice days ahead. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are always our busiest days at tour events and The Open Championship is no exception. We spend the day looking after more players in the final qualifying stages and welcome some of our US PGA Tour players such as Mark O'Meara, Lee Janzen and Tom Lehman. On Monday evening at around five O'clock I walk out on to the course to meet up with Tom Lehman. He's coming to the end of his practice round and I need to escort him back to the practice range where he will be conducting an interview for a major publication on our Tour vehicle.

The crowds are really big even at this early stage and it's a little difficult at first to get to Tom. I join him at the seventeenth and I walk the last two holes with him. He showed me how the hole should be played with a majestic drive over the corner of The Old Course Hotel to the middle of the fairway followed by a punched five iron which kept low in the wind and landed softly on the front half of the green. Tom said he would settle for that during the Championship. A safe par at the last and we were on our way to the practice range on a mini bus provided for the players.

Tom was not happy with his pitching wedge, he had some problems with it the week before at Loch Lomond and he didn't like the way it looked. When we got to the truck I discovered that it had gone weak by one degree which meant the leading edge of the club was too far forward for his liking.

I bent the club stronger and it looked the way he wanted it. The look of relief on Tom's face was amazing, he was so relieved that it was just the loft that was wrong. He never likes to change his clubs much, he's been known to let his grips go for a year without being changed.

Tuesday began at 5.45am for breakfast with the rest of the tour team. We discuss the day ahead and prioritize some of our duties for the day. We get to the course before seven O'clock as some of the players begin to arrive for their practice round. They will be trying to play the course in both calm conditions and windy conditions so these early starters will play late on Wednesday. As the tour team gets cracking with building some more prototype drivers and a few sets of grips to be changed I head out to the course around nine O'clock to walk a few holes with Ernie Els.

I bring with me a new Prototype driver that Ernie is working with. He did win with one the previous week at Loch Lomond but he just wanted to experiment with a stronger loft. He was considering changing from 8.5 degrees down to eight degrees but in the end he decides to stick with what he has. Everything else is ok with Ernie and he seemed pretty confident about the week ahead. Ernie is one of the easiest staff players we have to work with and quite often it would be me that would suggest to him that he should have his lofts checked or his grips changed.

I leave Ernie to go back to the practice range where I have arranged a meeting with a player's agent. Even at this early stage of the season I need to be looking ahead to next year and decide what players would best fit our strategy. I have several meetings like this scheduled throughout the week with different agents. As I am looking after both the Taylor Made and adidas brands there are a lot of players to discuss, we currently have seventeen Taylor Made staff players and fifteen adidas staff players. On top of these players there are those that want to be a part of our team from next season and onwards so there is usually a lot to discuss.

The rest of the day is filled up with working with players on the practice range and towards the end of the day Ernie Els decides that his grips are not quite right so we change them and get finished up around 7.30. We hold a brief team meeting before heading back to the hotel.

Wednesday is another early start at 5.45 and when we get to the course it's Thomas Bjorn that needs some work done on his driver. Thomas was one of the first players to test the Prototype driver along with Patrik Sjoland earlier in the year and it was Patrik that had the first worldwide win with the club. Thomas wanted to change the flight characteristics of his driver so we did a little work with some different lofts on some clubs we prepared for him. In the end we just changed the one he was playing with, we bent it half a degree stronger and it gave him what he wanted.

We did some work with staff players Ian Garbutt, Retief Goosen, Jarrod Moseley and Scott Watson who came through the qualifying rounds. In the afternoon we sort through clothing for our adidas players and make sure they are wearing the right range for the Championship.

At the end of the day we go through the list of our players and make sure we haven't left anything out, one of our prime objectives is making sure all the players are happy and comfortable with their equipment. It seems that we have all put in a good few days work and there are no problems to speak of. We get back to the hotel at around 8 O'clock and we're all pretty tired. Our work is pretty much done now for the week, our remaining task is to have our vehicle open from before the first tee time each morning until the last players leave the range just in case there are any last minute adjustments that the players require.

I stay at The Championship on Thursday for some more meetings before I travel back home that evening. Friday is spent compiling reports and product updates for our engineer's back in Carlsbad, California. The Tour department is at the forefront of product development and I must make sure that our Research and Development team has the necessary information particularly with such a project as our Prototype driver.

I manage to catch the golf on television before I gather our team together again to travel to The Dutch open. The tour vehicle leaves St Andrews on Sunday evening and is on site in Holland by Monday afternoon ready for work again on Tuesday morning.