Golf

The remainder of the PGA Tour schedule this season will be played without spectators after the organizers of four tournaments announced on Monday that they would close their events to the public.“Our No. 1 priority remains the health and safety of everyone in the communities where we are invited,” Andy Pazder, the PGA Tour’s chief of tournaments, said in a statement, attributing the decision to the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.The organizers for the Wyndham Championship and the three tournaments that make up the FedEx Cup playoffs each released a separate statement on Monday announcing the decision.“These decisions are never easy,” Allison Fillmore, the executive director of the Tour Championship, said in a statement, “and we would like to thank the City of Atlanta and PGA Tour headquarters for their extensive collaboration as we arrived at what was the best decision for all involved with the Tour Championship and the community.”The Tour Championship, scheduled for Sept. 4 to 7 at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, is set to be the last event of the playoffs, which in normal years are contested after golf’s major tournaments and feature the PGA Tour’s largest purses.Several other PGA Tour events are scheduled in the next four months, and it is unlikely that any of them will welcome fans. The Memorial Tournament, which begins Thursday and will feature Tiger Woods, had received clearance from health officials to welcome about 8,000 fans daily to the Muirfield Village course in Dublin, Ohio, but scrapped those plans last week as confirmed cases of the virus spiked in the state and around the country.The announcements do not directly affect the three major golf championships remaining this year. The P.G.A. Championship, scheduled for San Francisco’s T.P.C. Harding Park, had already said it would be contested without fans. The United States Open, conducted by the United States Golf Association and set for Sept. 17 to 20 at the Winged Foot Golf Club in Westchester County, N.Y., has not yet revealed whether it will host fans at its tournament. The U.S.G.A. has considered allowing a limited number of spectators to the event or holding the event without fans.The Masters, scheduled for Nov. 12 to 15 in Augusta, Ga., has also not committed to having fans — or prohibiting them. More

DUBLIN, Ohio — Collin Morikawa figured his tournament was over if he did not make a 5-foot par putt on the 15th hole at Muirfield Village. As it turned out, the fun was just starting.Still three shots behind Justin Thomas with three holes to play, Morikawa made only one birdie, but it was enough for a six-under-par 66 to force a playoff.The three times he played the 18th hole on Sunday, he twice could only watch as Thomas missed 10-foot putts for the win. The other time, Morikawa had to make a 25-foot putt to keep playing.The only dull moment at the Workday Charity Open was at the end, when Morikawa took two putts for par from just inside 10 feet to beat Thomas on the third playoff hole and win for the second time in his PGA Tour career.Morikawa never looked like the winner until it was over. Thomas had 10 straight one-putt greens, the last one a 25-foot eagle putt on the par-5 15th for the three-shot lead with three holes to play. And while he made two bogeys for a 69 that allowed for a playoff, he had reason to think it was over when he made a 50-foot birdie putt from the back of the 18th green on the first extra hole.“It was crazy,” Morikawa said.It was a wild ride for Thomas, too. He lost a two-shot lead at the start in three holes. He ran off four straight birdies and had 10 consecutive one-putts to build his lead through 15 holes.“It’s completely unacceptable to give up a three-shot lead with three to go,” Thomas said. “I’m upset, I’m disappointed in myself.”Thomas did not do anything terribly wrong — a tee shot in the thick collar on the par-3 16th that led to bogey, a 12-foot birdie attempt on the 17th that narrowly missed, and a tee shot that found a bunker on the 18th and led to another bogey and a 69. He and Morikawa finished at 19-under 269.Viktor Hovland of Norway had a 71 and finished alone in third, four shots behind. His hopes ended with two shots — he found a bunker from the 10th fairway for bogey, and hit a driver on the reachable 14th that missed by only about 5 feet, enough for the ball to slowly tumble down the bank and into the water.This was a big win for the 23-year-old Morikawa, who in his 13 months since graduating from the University of California has established a reputation for consistency. His only previous tour victory was at an event with a relatively weak field last summer. The Workday Charity Open featured five of the top 10 players in the world.“This is a huge kind of steppingstone,” said Morikawa, who goes to No. 13 in the rankings, one spot ahead of Tiger Woods. “We got No. 1 out of the way. We got No. 2. Let the gates just open and let’s keep going.”It was Morikawa’s second playoff since the PGA Tour returned on June 11 from the coronavirus pandemic. He lost on the first extra hole at Colonial by missing a 3-foot putt. He had a 2-foot putt in regulation on Sunday that caught the left edge of the cup and swirled in. “My heartbeat must have skipped a billion times,” Morikawa said.The only thing missing for him was a handshake from Jack Nicklaus. He will be there this coming week for the Memorial, as the PGA Tour stays at Muirfield Village. More

Missing a short putt worth hundreds of thousands of dollars is a golfer’s nightmare, but PGA Tour veterans have ways of psyching themselves up to try anyway. More

The 2020 Ryder Cup, a biennial international men’s golf competition that dates to the 1920s, was postponed until next year on Wednesday because of the coronavirus pandemic. The P.G.A. of America, which conducts the team event contested between players from the United States and Europe, said the competition, scheduled for Sept. 25 to 27, would […] More

The Women’s British Open will be held as planned, albeit without spectators, at Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland from Aug. 20 to 23, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, which conducts the tournament, said on Tuesday. The event will be the first women’s major golf championship of 2020. Last month, another women’s major, the […] More

The PGA Tour’s Memorial Tournament, scheduled next week in central Ohio, had hoped to pave the way for spectators to return to golf events during the coronavirus pandemic, and in turn perhaps provide a blueprint for how fans could safely attend other major American sports competitions. But on Monday, the tour and tournament organizers announced […] More

CROMWELL, Conn. — The Travelers Championship, the PGA Tour’s third tournament after a 90-day layoff because of the coronavirus pandemic, began last week with a flurry of positive tests for the virus among players and caddies. The event warily lurched forward. But by the final round Sunday afternoon, uncertainty, drama and the import that accompanies […] More

CROMWELL, Conn. — When Sergio Garcia sank his final putt Thursday on an 18th green enveloped by a natural amphitheater customarily filled with thousands of fans, the golf ball’s rattle around inside the hole could be heard from 30 yards away. A minute later, as Garcia ascended a hill, the only sound was his pencil […] More