Wildwood Teen Has First-Hand Look At Senior PGA Tour History

By now, you've probably heard that Kohki Idoki won all the marbles in the just-completed 74th Senior PGA Championship contested this past weekend at Bellerive Country Club in West St. Louis County.

Maybe you watched on television or were one of the thousands who lined the course to get a glimpse at some of golf's greats. But there's a good bet you didn't have the perspective Andrew Countryman had of the competition.

With a little help from his father, who has worked as a walking scorer at several tournaments, Andrew, 18, got a spot as the standard bearer over the weekend. That's the person who walks with each group of golfers on the field and holds a sign with the names of the players and their scores.

In a random assignment, he was with Idoki, of Japan and Australia's Peter Senior on Sunday as Idoki made his charge to come from behind and overtake third round leader Kenny Perry en route to becoming the first Asian winner of a U.S. Senior PGA "major".

Countryman, who was able to fit training for the assignment in this week around graduating from Lafayette High School with more than a 4.0 grade point average, took away some golf lessons from watching Idoki up close.

"He played a very conservative game, made the putts that he needed to and he always chose--not the safest route, but the path that would get him to the green easiest," Countryman observed.

The young man also got an autographed flag from the winner for his trouble.