SAN DIEGO — Mark Twain famously called golf a good walk spoiled.
Tiring, too.
The South Course at Torrey Pines played 7,695 yards Thursday from the first tee to the 18th green. That amounts to nearly 4 1/2 miles (not including side trips into the rough) of walking. And standing.
Most spectators don’t bring chairs with them, so tired legs are typical for those not accustomed to such a workout.
That’s where inspiration met opportunity for Brendan Greene, founder and CEO of Bora, a local company renting chairs for $10 a day at the Farmers.
They rented out 45 chairs during Wednesday’s opening round and doubled that total on the tournament’s second day.
As word spreads, Greene hopes during the last two rounds to rent all 125 chairs he brought to the site. The Bora booth is located at the course entrance off the South’s 18th hole.
“The first day, we saw the big rush of people exiting and that’s when you started seeing peoples’ heads turning, and them saying, ‘Oh, they have chairs,’ ” Greene said. “And we’re creating a little bit of buzz on Instagram.
“We could potentially at the next event offer them for free and have a sponsor on the back and have more chairs. If we had 300 chairs all over the course, that’s great sponsorship.”
Greene started the company eight months ago, shortly after moving to San Diego from New York.
The idea originated when he was on vacation two years ago.
“I had an Airbnb with a group of friends,” Greene said. “We were in Long Island, N.Y., and this became a constant issue because we were taking Ubers back and forth to the beach.
“We were spending the majority of our time at the public beach and had to lug them or people didn’t have chairs. I saw a perfect little section at the entrance to the beach where I thought it would be cool if you could do something like a city bike, but with a chair.”
Greene has lined up a dozen locations adjacent to San Diego beaches to provide chairs.
“We’ll have a network of these docking stations at the beach, starting out at P.B. in a couple of weeks,” he said.
This is Bora’s event debut, but Greene plans to discuss the concept with PGA Tour officials.
“We’re hoping to eventually get on the road and be the weekly provider of these chairs,” said Greene, who wants to expand to concerts and festivals and anything else where people want to take a seat. “It’s a commodity product, but we’re innovating the technology now and that’s what, we think, makes us that first to market service and, hopefully, we can go from there.”
Greene was asked if chairs could be rented out at parties for playing musical chairs.
“Haven’t thought of that yet,” Greene said, “but we’re open to everything.”
Death, taxes and QR codes
It is inevitable for technological advancements to impact golf beyond clubs and balls.
Fans have seen it with virtual ticketing on their smart phones.
Something else spectators have encountered at the Farmers is tee sheets that no longer are printed on paper but accessed through a QR code in the tournament booklets handed out at entrances.
“It’s definitely a new concept for us this year,” said Melissa McLenon, a volunteer from Pacific Beach who was coaching up spectators arriving at the entrance adjacent to the Hilton hotel. “It’s difficult for people who are not used to scanning, but most now are more familiar with QR codes.
“Or the younger folks are.”
It’s easy enough: Focus the phone’s camera over the QR code and a link comes up to access the pairings.
“For the older generation it’s a little more challenging,” McLenon said. “They like looking at things on paper, not on their phone. And it’s harder for older people to see with their glasses on their phones.”
McLenon said complaints were minimal, however.
QR codes have been around for several years — since 1994, actually, when they were invented by Japanese automotive company Denso Wave — although they haven’t caught on as quickly as some might have imagined (thanks, Boomer).
The codes gained some steam during the pandemic when businesses such as restaurants replaced paper menus with the codes while embracing “touchless” systems.
Here’s something to look forward to for posterity: QR codes have even been incorporated into headstones. Click on a code and read all about someone on the other side of the grass.
Yogism of the day
The ULTRA Zone is a new spectator area above the South’s 9th tee box that, for $200, allows a fan entrance to the grounds and access to a suite with the primary perk being “all-inclusive beer and seltzer.”
A spectator waiting to cross the South’s 18th fairway about midday engaged a marshal and pointed toward the ULTRA Zone.
The woman wanted to know if she could sit up there.
“No, you can’t go up there without a pass,” the marshal said. “That’s where people pay thousands of dollars to go drink for free.”
