When the opportunity arose to report in person from this year’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas, I didn’t hesitate to go all-in.

Arriving on Monday, I spent the week under brilliant blue skies on the immaculate grounds of TPC Summerlin, where, as it turned out, the field showcased a larger number of promising youngsters than usual, along with seasoned pros, including the eventual winner.

What follows is a selection of stories and statistics that made an impression on me during a lucky golfer’s week at the Tour’s fabulous Sin City stop.

1) Jerty Bird, from inside the ropes

Nothing much more fun than strolling the fairways in a @PGATOUR event – it’s way cooler than imagined.

— Marty Jertson (@jertybird) November 3, 2016

Jertson, who is Senior Design Engineer at Ping, earned his Vegas spot by winning sectional qualifying. His Thursday round was definitely not a good stroll spoiled: on his way to a 1-under 70, Jertson was the only player to hit every green in regulation — he does, after all, play clubs that he helped create. Unfortunately, @jertybird came back down to earth on Friday, still hitting three out of four greens, but shooting 1-over par and missing the cut by three at even par.

See the clubs Jerston had in the bag this week.

2) The 2016 PGA Champion struggles, to say the least

With an Official World Golf Ranking of 18, Jimmy Walker was the highest ranked player in the Shriners field. Unfortunately, he didn’t play like it. His 8-over par, 74-76 missed the cut by eleven, just two shots better than the worst score posted. Over his final 27 holes, Walker managed only two birdies. Which isn’t surprising, in light of a couple of other rankings: 129th in strokes gained putting, 132nd in total putting, and 139th (dead last) in strokes gained off the tee.

3) The big hitter

Longest drive of the week: 370 yards (Ryan Brehm, 13th hole, fourth round). Beast.

4) An over-sized field: The lucky ones

The Shriners field was to consist of 132 players; a mix-up resulted in there being 144. How many of the Lucky Twelve opened the door when opportunity knocked?

Eight, including most notably of course the winner, Rod Pampling, who followed a course-record 60 on Thursday with rounds of 68, 71, and 65. The other seven who made the cut: Ryan Blaum, (10-under, T31); Trey Mullinax, (9-under, T36); Will MacKenzie, (7-under, T48); Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, (7-under, T48); C.T. Pan, (5-under, T57); Seamus Power, (5-under, T57); and Mackenzie Hughes, (2-under, T68).

5) A victim and a survivor 

Early morning on the range: The calm before the storm

As a result of the super-sized field, play was suspended because of darkness in both the first and second rounds. Among those affected by the latter interruption were Kevin Tway and Ryan Brehm, each with several holes to go. When the re-start horn sounded at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, Tway was on the green, and Brehm was on the tee. It was a gorgeous desert morning, with the just-risen sun casting long shadows. But other than a few tournament workers and a single spectator, players and caddies were on their own.

Tway’s first stroke at the crack of dawn was with his putter: from 38 feet, he rolled it 10 feet past. Something about the silence and the lack of a crowd made Tway’s comebacker seemed more nerve-racking than a putt I’ve ever faced.

Meanwhile, Brehm had driven it 276 yards onto a slope of desert waste ground. To hit his second, he had to get entirely too intimate with a scraggly bush. Brehm managed to advance the ball, but only a couple of yards, and still in the rocky scrub. Extricating himself from his new best friend, Brehm held the club across his belly, gripped in both hands, as if tempted to snap the thing in half.

Tway did make his tester, but it wasn’t enough to salvage the round, ultimately shooting 1-over. Tway finished 36 holes at 2-under, missing the cut by one. Brehm ended up double-bogeying the sixth, which left him just one above the then projected cut-line. But he rallied with birdies on two of his final three re-start holes, and shortly thereafter headed right back out, into the decidedly more glamorous atmosphere of Moving Day proper. He’d go on to post a 67, and sat in T21 at event’s end.

6) Henley closes hot

Low round on Moving Day belonged to Russell Henley: a bogey-free 63. Heading into Sunday, the two-time Tour winner had gone 30 holes without a bogey. He has form when it comes to moving and then closing hot: at Sanderson Farms, where he finished T14 at 11-under, he had eleven birdies and just one bogey over the final 51 holes.

7) The youngster

Twenty-year-old Aaron Wise was the youngest Shriners Open entrant, making his fifth career PGA Tour start as a sponsor invite. The 2016 NCAA individual medalist while at Oregon, Wise will be on the Web.com Tour in 2017.

Wise’s coach, Jeff Smith of TPC Summerlin, has described Wise as “one of the straightest drivers I have ever seen when he wants to be. His ability to drive the golf ball is what sets him apart.”

Related: See the clubs Wise has in the bag in 2016

At the Shriners, however, Wise couldn’t find the fairway at first: he was T132 in Driving Accuracy after the first round (only 4 of 14 fairways), and still struggling through the second. That evening, he was the last man on the range under the lights, driver in hand and working, as he explained to me, on losing the push-cut and keeping the clubface from “getting right” on him. Result? In Round 3, Wise climbed to T1 in the same category, hitting 11 of 14 fairways.

Wise shot 68 Sunday, finishing T10 at 14-under. But the driver troubles had returned: he hit only 4 of 14 again, and dropped back to last (T72) in terms of closing-day Driving Accuracy.

8) The best scramblers

• Best scrambling percentage: 78.26 percent (Vaughan Taylor, making 18 saves on 23 missed greens in regulation).
• Best sand save percentage: 100 percent (Seung-Yul Noh, 4 for 4; Sean O’Hair, 3 for 3).
• Most bunkers hit into: 12 (Ernie Els, who made 6 saves), 11 (Keegan Bradley, who made 8).

9) The best putters

• Fewest putts per round: 21 (Chez Reavie, round 2).
• Best percentage on putts from outside 25-feet: 27.8 percent (Brian Gay, 5 out of 18).
• Best one-putt percentage: 56.94 percent (Michael Kim, with 41 one-putts over the seventy-two holes).

10) Fez wearers, fundraisers and a great swing

Within two club-lengths of just about everywhere you go at the Shriners, you catch sight of a fez. It has got to be the most distinctive headgear encountered on the PGA Tour. Worn by higher-ups in the Shriners — including “Potentates” — each fez is embroidered with the arabian-themed name of the wearer’s home course, by which I mean his local chapter, known as a “temple.” For example, in the accompanying photo, Richard Burke, Jeff Sowder, and Kevin Costello represent for Atlanta’s “Yaarab,” Wichita’s “Midian,” and Albany’s “Cyprus.”

What a golf swing.

Tommy Morrissey, 5, hit the ceremonial first tee shot today @ShrinersOpen. https://t.co/7JU1ieGzoD

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) November 3, 2016

It should be noted what outstanding charitable work the Shriners do through their Hospitals for Children. At 22 locations, they provide life-changing care for kids, regardless of their families’ ability to pay. One of their patients, 5-year-old Tommy Morrissey, dazzled a number of hard-to-impress Tour pros early in the week with his unique golfing skill. For more about Tommy and the Shriners: @onearmgolfer and www.shrinershospitalsforchildren.org.

11) A fruitful late-night range session

Martin Flores was spotted as the last player on the range after he moved the wrong way on Moving Day, following up back-to-back 67s, which included a total of 13 birdies, with a birdie-less 77 (the day’s worst round), leaving him T68 at 2-under. The rest of the field bagged 304 birds on Saturday; only Kevin Streelman joined Flores without a single circle on his card.

He must have found something on the range Saturday night, because he finished with a Sunday 65, good for T41. From 77 to 65 in just one day; isn’t golf a crazy game?

The Shriners is Flores’ third event of 2016-17, and the second cut he’s made. He re-earned his Tour card for this season with an outstanding ’15-’16 on the Web.com Tour, where he had a win plus seven top-10s in 21 starts.

12) The most difficult hole

The 492-yard, par-4 third, which played to a 4.27 scoring average, allowing only 33 birdies, compared to 120 bogeys and 17 doubles or worse. Winner Rod Pampling played the hole in 2-under for the week, making birdie, birdie, par, par.

13) The easiest hole

The 560-yard, par-5 16th, which played to a 4.14 scoring average, as the field notched 32 eagles and 231 birdies, versus only 27 bogeys and 3 doubles or worse.

14) Perez changes clubs, gets his swagger back

Pat Perez had the kind of week (15-under, finishing T7) that prompted questions about how it felt to have his “swagger” back. Biggest factor: he’s healthy again. But he’s also switched to some new clubs, as he explained to ASAP Sports, “and I got a lot longer once I was healthy.” He added: “I’m actually hitting it solid, so much farther than I used to, and I’m in places that I have never been on this course. I hit 7-iron into 16 today and made eagle. I’ve never had anything less than hybrid in there.”

See the clubs Perez used at the Shriners Open here.

15) “Other,” the worst word in golf

In golf, there are eagles, birdies, pars, bogeys, double-bogeys … and “other.” Ah yes, the dreaded other. At the Shriners, there were 26 of them (as against 61 eagles and 4,685 pars), and one other belonged to defending Shriners champion Smylie Kaufman. His third-round snowman at the par-4 sixth hole resulted from first having trouble off the tee, and then trying to get back out of that trouble. Plus — wait for it, all of you who, like me, know all too well how this particular tune goes — three putts from 20 feet.

16) The drama

Sunday’s final group consisted of Lucas Glover, Rod Pampling and Brooks Koepka, with Glover in the lead by one at 15-under. After the trio started with pars, there was lead-altering action on virtually every hole. Glover and Koepka birdied two. Glover bogeyed three. Birdies all-round on four. Koepka bogeyed five. Pampling birdied six. Pars all round on seven. Pampling birdied eight, then he and Glover birdied nine.

At the turn: Pampling (18-under); Glover, (17-under); Koepka, (15 -under), and four other players had also reached 15-under by then.

Pampling bogeyed 10. Glover bogeyed 11, then birdied 12, while Pampling bogeyed 12. Koepka’s par-streak, meantime, had reached seven at this point. It didn’t reach eight: Kopeka birdied 13, as did Pampling and Lucas. Pampling birdied 14. My head was starting to spin.

So, with four to go: Pampling (18-under); Glover, (18-under); Koepka, 16 (16-under). Molinari was in the clubhouse at 16-under, with Oglivy, in the last-but-one group, now at that number too. Birdies all-round at 15 for the final group. Koepka birdied 16. Glover bogeyed 17. This is getting interesting.

One to go: Pampling (19-under); Glover, (18-under); Koepka, (18-under). And Pampling drives the nail into the coffin by absolutely burying a 32-footer to close out with a birdie. Koepka finished second with a par and two shots back, while Glover finished third with a closing-hole bogey.

Related: What Pampling was thinking over his winning putt

In all, 26 birdies and bogeys were made by the final group. Talk about excitement!

17) Pampling earned it

Rod Pampling made a combined 325-feet and 4-inches of putts on his way to the win. He ranked first in total strokes gained, in strokes gained around the green, and in strokes gained tee-to-green. He was T15 in driving accuracy, and hit 56 of 72 greens in regulation (T11).

18) Sunday Scorecard

• Francesco Molinari’s Sunday 61 started taking shape when he holed-out from 124 yards for eagle at the 440-yard 11th hole (he started on the back). Molinari added eight birdies in his bogey-free round, and had the clubhouse lead at 16-under 268, where he was later joined by Harris English and Geoff Ogilvy for a T4 finish.
• Keegan Bradley’s strong season continued, closing with a 66 to finish T7 at 15-under.
• Kevin Streelman got right back on the birdie train on Sunday, sinking a 5-footer on the 10th hole, his opening hole.
• Martin Flores had to wait to re-board that train until his sixth hole of the day, after starting out with five pars. He then added more birdies on his seventh, ninth, 10th, 16th and 18th. Flores’ line: 67, 67, 77, 65, for an 8-under 276 and a T41 finish. He also drove long all week, averaging 307 yards, second in the field.
• Russell Henley never got it going. He bogeyed number five, after opening with four straight pars, then also bogeyed nine and 16. Posting only a pair of birdies, he finished with a 72, for T24 at 12-under.