The PGA Tour announced on Thursday that it would resume its season in mid-June with a tournament in Fort Worth, which would likely make men’s golf among the first major American professional sports to restart competition since the coronavirus pandemic halted most events in March.
The tour said the event, the Charles Schwab Challenge at the Colonial Country Club, would be played without spectators June 11 to 14, as would the next three tournaments scheduled in June and early July. Tour leaders, however, conceded that their plans could change based on the recommendations of health officials and government agencies in the locales set to host the events.
“The health and safety of all associated with the PGA Tour and our global community continues to be our No. 1 priority, and our hope is to play a role — responsibly — in the world’s return to enjoying the things we love,” said Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour. He added: “As we’ve stressed on several occasions, we will resume competition only when — working closely with our tournaments, partners and communities — it is considered safe to do so under the guidance of the leading public health authorities.”
Monahan indicated that the tour, which suspended play March 13, expected to continue an almost weekly schedule of events throughout the rest of the year. Early this month, the L.P.G.A. Tour said it hoped to resume its tournament schedule on June 19.
On Tuesday, Monahan, along with the commissioners of the N.F.L., the N.B.A., Major League Baseball and the L.P.G.A., were among more than 100 business, health care and elected officials named by President Trump to a new council to advise him on reopening the country’s economy.
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The Fort Worth event, a fixture on the PGA Tour schedule for many years, was originally to be played from May 21 to 24. In the reconfigured PGA Tour schedule announced Thursday, it would be followed by the RBC Heritage, beginning June 18 at Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island, S.C. A tournament outside Hartford, Conn., the Travelers Championship, would be up next from June 25 to 28.
Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut endorsed having the PGA Tour event in his state.
“I don’t think that’s too soon,” the governor said of the Travelers Championship in late June. He added that the tournament promised to be something that “showcases the best of Connecticut in a safe way.”
In July and early August, PGA Tour events would take place in Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota and Tennessee. It was not clear how many of the tournaments would be contested without spectators.
Brooks Koepka, the world’s third-ranked golfer, was skeptical about the timing for professional golf’s return.
“I hope we start in June; I just think it’s a little unrealistic,” Koepka said Wednesday in a question-and-answer session conducted on Instagram by his swing coach, Claude Harmon III. “You think about all these guys that are going to be in airports flying everywhere. There are so many guys. Everything has to be cleaned. Is it really possible?”
A PGA Tour event would probably have a field of about 140 golfers, many of whom — as Koepka noted — would be traveling to the site from far away. The logistics would typically require dozens of workers or volunteers, not to mention a multitude of employees from a television network, should the event be broadcast.
Golf’s first major championship, the P.G.A. Championship, is scheduled to begin on Aug. 6 in San Francisco, although the P.G.A. of America, a separate golf entity which oversees the P.G.A. Championship, has acknowledged that it may have to move its event out of California, or host the tournament without spectators.
The United States Open, once scheduled for mid-June in Westchester County, N.Y., was postponed last week until Sept. 17 to 20. At the same time, the British Open was postponed until 2021 and the Masters was rescheduled for Nov. 12 to 15 in Augusta, Ga.
On the subject of sporting events without spectators, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading public health expert on the president’s coronavirus task force, said in an interview that there was a way that athletic contests in pro baseball, football and college sports could return this summer or fall.
“Nobody comes to the stadium,” Fauci said, adding that players would have to be housed in “big hotels.”
“Wherever you want to play,” he said, “keep them very well surveilled, but have them tested every single week and make sure they don’t wind up infecting each other or their family, and just let them play the season out.”
Source: Golf - nytimes.com