As soon as the co-leaders, (at the time) Trevor Immelman and Brandt Snedeker meandered past, tracking their tee shots, volunteer Walter Fowler dropped the ropes keeping pedestrians from crossing the 3rd fairway for the last time. He tied the ropes up to the green stakes and prepared to head home to Florida. His week-long job here was done.

And soon it will be someone dropping the ropes at the 4th and the 5th and so on, and all the crowds will be forced to envelop an ever shortening number of holes until they are almost standing on each other’s shoulders while bounding the 18th green like acrobats in the Chinese Circus.

And just like the fans, Mr. Tiger Woods is quickly running out of holes to work his magic no matter how many wands he has left in his bag. It’s the final distilling.

Everything but the shadows is shrinking.

The goods on the shelves in the Golf Shop are dwindling down to a precious few, and the last funnel cakes have been dropped into boiling oil outside the gates.

As the tension mounts, so does the quiet.

The crowd understands what’s at stake. They see themselves as part of the process and integral if not equal players in this familiar pageant. They ooh and they aah, and they even boo on cue. But only for Weekley. “They’re not booing, they’re saying Boo.”

Next year, Mr. Fowler will be back manning his post on the 3rd fairway for the 19th consecutive time. And so will most everybody else playing natural roles in this annual tableau.