Our Director of Golf Operations, Troy Eckberg, just returned to Central Oregon from the Sony Open held at Waialae Country Club on the island of Oahu. No, he wasn’t playing in the tourney … he was the official scoreboard calligrapher for the tourney.
Troy learned scoreboard calligraphy after his second year in the golf business as an Assistant Golf Professional at the Kapalua Golf Club on the Island of Maui. “I watched another professional put together a tournament scoreboard on scoresheets and figured that this would be something that I could do as well. I told the Head Professional that if he ever needed another person to handle a tournament scoreboard that I was more than capable of handling the task. He asked me to do a small club tournament and from there on I was doing all tournaments for Kapalua,” Troy said.
Since 1998, Eckberg has been honing his calligraphy skills in this golf tradition. “This is how scoreboards were kept for many years up until digital took over. There isn’t to many tournaments still utilizing this style of scoreboard, but for the few that still use both digital and traditional, the traditional scoreboard seems to be a center of attention.”
A chance meeting at River’s Edge Golf Course got Troy the gig at the Sony Open. “I met the Tournament Director of the Sony Open here at River’s Edge a couple of years ago. He and his son came to play a River’s Edge, I remembered him from Hawaii by his first and last name. He was a bit schocked that someone behind the front desk at River’s Edge knew him by name, I introduced myself and mentioned my Hawaii background, and told him that if he ever needed someone to do his tournament scoreboard for the Sony Open that this is what I do. He immediately asked me if I wanted to work the tournament in January 2014. I couldn’t say ‘no’ to this offer.”
Troy calculated he handwrote over 10,000 numbers for the entire week he was at the Sony Open. “I was asked if I am some sort of artist. NO! I was asked if I was an accountant. Definitely NO! I was asked if I was paid to do the scoreboard. Heck NO.”
Source: River’s Edge Golf Blog