Have you ever been to a major golf event? Have you ever experienced that special aura that you will find at these masterpiece golf courses during the tournament? Well I did, just last week. And unfortunately it wasn’t the full experience with complete attendance during the whole weekend – it was “only” the training day – but it was absolutely fantastic.

The positive thing about training days is that you can bring your camera, take the pictures you like and that you really get close to the players. Since they just practise on that day, they are a bit more relaxed, give autographs on every golf memorabilia that you hand them – be it a ball, a flag, a hat, a water bottle or parts of the body.

I have been to “normal” tournaments before, and that was a nice activity as well, but being around on a US Open course, such prestigeous event that people will remember forever, is quite a different thing. How incredible that must be for players! Because the US Open is still – as you read it – an ‘open’ tournament. Hence there were some lucky amateurs, proved to play well enough to compete (at least a little bit), joining the pros and being a part of that incredible story.

I really enjoyed the time I spent at the notable Olympic Club just outside of San Francisco, having the opportunity to really get close to these famous players and being accompanied by my girlfriend who just got into golf a bit. It was amazing to see the players preparing on the putting green or on the driving range, and it was special to see the ball striking when you follow them around the course. They are really just very capable of that what they are doing I can tell you. And as I said – it gets even more special due to the fact that this is a major tournament and not just only the next weekend of PGA golf.

Please have a look at some golfing impressions I could catch during that day. We missed Tiger (we have been told he tried to avoid the crowds and started his round at 6am!) but we saw a lot of Lucas Glover, Davis Love III, Ian Poulter, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Vijay Singh, Mark Wilson, Dustin Johnson, Ryo Ishikawa, Matt Kuchar, Adam Scott and others.

By the way: just one day after that we have been to another famous golf course of the US Open heritage: Pebble Beach on the Monterey Peninsula, where the Open was hosted two years ago. And this course, being situated directly at the rough Pacific coast, this setting really has something special – no wonder this course is one of the most famous in the world. Next time I will definitely play a round. it’s only 500 bucks! ahem…