It’s been awhile since I’ve watched Tiger Woods play a round of golf live. I watched him a bunch while growing up — U.S. Opens, PGA Championships, the Open Championship, local tournaments, and even the Tavistock Cup one year. When I was younger, I’d run around and sneak as close to the ropes as I could on every shot. As I got a bit older, dealing with the enormous and pushy crowds became more exhausting, so following just Tiger for 18 holes became less enticing. But, watching Tiger play live is always fun, and since he played his pro-am on Wednesday at The Memorial with Peyton Manning, I figured I’d follow their group for the first nine holes.

Here are my takeaways from Wednesday at Muirfield Village Golf Club watching Tiger and Peyton play golf together.

1) Peyton Jerseys

As expected, there were tons of Peyton fans, Denver Broncos fans, and Indianapolis Colts fans following the Tiger-Peyton group, many of them donning their No. 18 jerseys. Some were local Ohioans who happened to be Peyton fans, while others made the trip just for the occasion.

2) Peyton haters

There were some of those, too. I heard some rumblings about Tom Brady being better, and a few more passionate (re: vulgar) words regarding Peyton. The guy is just trying to play some golf with Tiger. Relax on the hate, you know?

But like… Tom Brady is better.

3) No-maha

I’m proud to report that I did not hear one fan scream “Omaha” after one of his shots ala “mashed potatoes.” Great job, golf fans. I expected much less and for that I’m ashamed.

4) Tiger’s bunker play was sharp

Tiger nearly holed a bunker shot on No. 1, and another on the par 3 4th. With two new TaylorMade Milled Grind wedges in the bag, he still looks comfortable in the sand.

5) His chipping also looks sharp

On hole No. 8, Tiger holed a flop shot off a downslope from deep rough. And although it’s a pro-am, the roar was reminiscent of an Augusta Sunday roar. People were fired up.

6) Tiger’s short game looking good means one thing…

He didn’t hit many greens. Some left, some right. I counted 4 missed greens on the front. But…

7) Tiger’s hitting lots of fairways

By my count Tiger hit every fairway except for one, and he was splitting them. That’s gotta be comforting for Tiger fans. Just gotta hit a few more greens.

8) Buckets

Split fairway on No. 2. Juicy short iron to 10 feet. Bang bang! Tiger made two birds on the front (the other being his hole-out), against one bogey — he had a nice par save on the 9th hole from about 5 feet after a shaky first lag putt from about 40 feet.

9) Close-up of Tiger’s new TaylorMade wedges

For more information on Tiger’s new Milled Grind wedges, click here. Based on the photo above, his new 60-degree has 10.5 degrees of bounce.

And here’s a not-so-close-up look at the face…

10) Peyton misses left a lot

Peyton spent most of the front nine hitting from the left rough off the tee, although he hit a few great approach shots with his irons. His face gets really shut on the backswing, so this isn’t terribly surprising.

11) No, it’s an 18

Peyton looking for his ball in the rough while playing with Tiger at The Memorial pro-am…

Marshal: “Here’s a ball… Titleist, 14?”

Peyton, dead pan: “No, Titleist 18”

C’mon Mr. Marshal, obviously it’s 18! pic.twitter.com/63QvaDa0Ka

— GolfWRX (@GolfWRX) May 30, 2018

12) Autographs

Peyton signed A LOT of autographs. Between every shot, fans screamed out “Peyton, Peyton, will you sign?” and he spent a bunch of time signing. He signed footballs, jerseys, flags, golf balls, everything.

13) Hey kid, nice catch

Here’s a look at one of Peyton’s game-used Titleist ProV1 No. 18 golf balls, signed by Peyton himself. According to this kid’s mother, he had a broken index finger but still caught the ball that Peyton threw. Nice catch!

14) Peyton WITB

All PXG 0311 irons and wedges, and a PXG 0311X driving iron. He looked to have a PXG driver with a Graphite Design Tour AD-TP shaft as well, but don’t quote me on that (hey, there were a lot of people out there it was hard to get close, gimmie a break!).

15) Instructor Tiger

Tiger and Peyton walked the fairways together for much of the front nine, talking and laughing, telling stories. They talked a lot. Every now and then, Tiger would start making air swings, showing Peyton the ropes. Hopefully he was telling him how to open the face more on the backswing, and judging from the photo above, that’s exactly what he was doing.

16) Interviews on interviews

It’s just a pro-am, so mid-round interviews are acceptable.

But I can’t imagine these mid-round interviews don’t get annoying. There’s a team match going on after all!

17) Team Tiger

Through 9 holes, Team Tiger was just 4-under par, 3 shots behind Team Johnson.

18) No pressure

Don’t worry guys, you’re just playing with Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning in front of thousands of people. No worries.