I don’t know why, but I always let my conscience sucker me into this.

Every. Single. Time.

It seems oh-so-important on the Thursday of any major, but especially this one: the Open Championship at the Home of Golf, the historic implications of what might happen in four days’ time banging around in my head about as loudly as the alarm clock that just informed me it’s either 5 a.m. in Scotland or, according to my head, midnight back home. I haul my jet-lagged rear end out of bed, discover, to my dismay, that there’s no coffee maker (let alone coffee) in our rental house, and yet still manage to navigate the winding road from Cupar to St. Andrews in time. My brain is already fried not only by the time difference but then, too, by a sunrise that seems to have occurred at three in the morning. But whatever fog I’m in, I tell myself that I have to be there. Because whatever might happen this week, it all starts today.

I have to get the “First ball.”

It seemed like a good idea at the time...

Nobody’s told me I have to do it. Nobody’s expecting it. Hell, I don’t even really want to do it, but there’s something nagging in my head that makes me feel the need to go, to stand out on the golf course with a bunch of other brave souls in the bleakest hours of the morning, and make sure I get a picture of a guy hitting a tee shot. One that looks just like any other tee shot. Without a caption to tell you, you’d never know the difference. Hell, if it weren’t for the fact that this was the very first shot of this year’s Open, this picture probably wouldn’t make it past my first edit. Call it a work ethic if you want. Call it guilt. Mix the two together and call me a Calvinist. Or just call me stupid.

You see, it happens every time. When it’s hit, that first ball seems like it’s the most critical shot of the tournament, a piece of living history. There won’t ever be another one. And for my part, it proves to me that I was there. I wasn’t late. I didn’t miss it. I feel good about myself.

And then, about an hour later, I start running into people I know in the press room. They haven’t unpacked yet, but they see me all ready and raring to go. Cameras out, rain pants on, wide awake and alert from the five or six cups of coffee I’ve already downed. “Man, you’re here early,” they’ll say. Or offer some variation thereof.

“Had to get the first ball,” I say.

“Really? Why?”

It’s at that moment that I realize that that’s a damned good question.