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The Open, the only men’s major tournament to shut down last year because of the pandemic, returns with spectators and some strict limitations.SANDWICH, England — Just ahead of the British Open at Royal St. George’s Golf Club, Edward Kitson walked briskly through the dunes on Wednesday night, making his way to the clubhouse and thinking back to last year. More
They have learned to stay fit and play smarter. And the British Open seems to be their fountain of youth.From the 18th fairway in the final group of the British Open in 2009, Tom Watson, the five-time Open champion, hit a shot that flew right at the pin. For a moment, it looked like Watson, then age 59, would win the tournament for a record sixth time and become the oldest player to win a major championship. More
After last year’s tournament was canceled because of the pandemic — the first time since World War II — the British Open is back. More
He has won four majors, but with his investment fund he’s preparing for a life without golf.By every measure, Rory McIlroy is in the prime of his career. And given recent performances by players in their 40s and 50s on the PGA Tour, McIlroy, 32, who is originally from Northern Ireland, has decades to go before thinking about hanging up his spikes. More
Ahead of the British Open, Koepka said the two were “not going to be high-fiving” each other as Ryder Cup teammates and traced the reason back to 2019.The feud between Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau survived the trip across the Atlantic to the British Open with barbs intact, erupting and entertaining anew on Tuesday. Among the highlights:At a news conference ahead of the tournament at Royal St. George’s in southeast England, a reporter began his question to DeChambeau with a cheery “Hi, Brooks.” More
He gets excited talking about the Olympics and the Ryder Cup.In last October’s Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club in North Berwick, Tommy Fleetwood of England lost to Aaron Rai of England on the first playoff hole, missing a putt for par. More
Professional golfers worry about sustaining peak form, but say that scheduling four championships April through July is good for the game, and anyone who gets on a roll.KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — This is just the second time in the modern era of men’s professional golf that the sport’s four major championships will be contested in consecutive months, one each from April through July. The schedule was similar in 2019 when, after years of deliberation, the P.G.A. Championship opted to move to May, from its long standing date in mid-August.But the pandemic in 2020 forced three major championships, the P.G.A. Championship, the United States Open and the Masters, to be held from August to November. So, when this year’s P.G.A. Championship concludes Sunday at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, the world’s top men’s golfers will have played five majors in 10 months. Moreover, if the 2021 U.S. Open and this year’s British Open are held as expected in June and July, respectively, golf will have crammed seven majors into 12 months.If that weren’t enough, many of the best men’s players will also be competing in the Tokyo Olympics golf tournament from July 29 to Aug. 1.It is unlikely such a grueling schedule would occur again, at least intentionally, but it raises the question of whether golf’s best players can be expected to peak for the sport’s biggest championships repeatedly in a compressed time period. And moving forward, what are the challenges to staying mentally and physically prepared for golf’s new format of four majors in four months? For pro golfers, it is a little like the lengthy playoff runs in professional basketball, hockey, soccer and baseball.“It feels like every two or three weeks we’re at a venue where it’s super stressful because it’s a difficult golf course or a difficult event,” Kevin Kisner, a three-time winner on the PGA Tour, said.Kisner added: “It feels like I’m constantly getting beat up out here with the big schedule. The hardest thing is every event feels big. I haven’t played well in any of them.”It has forced some players to make difficult choices, like skipping regular tour events that they used to play so they can rest for the condensed series of major tournaments. Justin Thomas, the world’s second ranked golfer, made such a decision last month when he took two weeks off after the Masters, even though not playing can diminish a golfer’s competitive edge.“I’m just not in the physical or mental state to be able to play a golf tournament after the grind of a pressure-filled event like the Masters,” Thomas said. “I need the time to relax and then get into it later where I feel like I’m peaking for this big stretch coming up.”While the new schedule has added to the strain of trying to claim what can be a career-defining major championship, most players believe it is worth it for two chief reasons: Golf no longer goes head-to-head with the N.F.L. in the fall, and players can take a break and put their clubs away earlier.Moving the P.G.A. Championship from August to May does both because it allows the PGA Tour’s season-ending FedEx Cup playoffs to start, and end, sooner.“If you poll all the players, I would think they would be happy about the way it is now,” Jordan Spieth, a three-time major winner, said this week. “We can finish our season in August and not compete with football. And then create a little bit of an off-season for ourselves.”Playing the P.G.A. Championship in the spring rather than the summer also allows the event to be played in more parts of the United States. Scheduling the tournament in August meant that areas of the country that experience especially hot summer conditions, which are ruinous to greens, could not stage a P.G.A. Championship. That eliminated wide swaths of the country.“We think the cadence of the schedule is just better for fans — better for players,” said Seth Waugh, the chief executive of the P.G.A. of America, which conducts the P.G.A. Championship. “Obviously it’s exhausting for them to go April, May, June, July, and then if this year you’ve got an Olympics. It’s a long grind.”The P.G.A. of America represents more than 28,000 teaching and club golf professionals nationwide who serve the recreational golfing public. More golf majors early in the year theoretically enhances overall interest in the sport. Said Waugh: “Our chance to kind of light the fire for the game in May is pretty significant.”In the end, Adam Scott, the 2013 Masters winner, thinks that tour players will be better adjusted to the new schedule after having done it a second time in 2021. He pointed to Brooks Koepka, who won two U.S. Opens and two P.G.A. Championships in a 26-month span beginning in 2017, as inspiration for his colleagues.“I look at it as a huge opportunity,” Scott said of the condensed schedule. “And I think seeing what Brooks has done from the schedule of winning a couple in really quick succession, or four in quick time — that’s what is possible if you can get on a roll.” More
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutVisual TimelineInside the SiegeNotable ArrestsCapitol Police in CrisisThe Global Far RightAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAfter Leaving Trump Property, P.G.A. Championship Lands in OklahomaThe major had been set to be played at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, N.J. in 2022, until the P.G.A. of America pulled out, saying that holding it there would be “detrimental” to its brand.The P.G.A. of America, which conducts the tournament, said Monday that it had awarded its 2022 championship to the Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla.Credit…Rob Carr/Associated PressJan. 25, 2021Updated 9:36 p.m. ETThe 2022 P.G.A. Championship, which was withdrawn from Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., days after a mob incited by the former president stormed the Capitol in a riot that resulted in the deaths of five people, has been awarded to the Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla.The P.G.A. of America, which conducts the tournament, one of the four major men’s golf championships worldwide, announced the new site for the event Monday in a brief statement. The tournament will be played next year from May 19 to 22.For many years, Donald Trump had publicly lobbied each of golf’s governing bodies to bestow one of the sport’s featured championships to one of his golf courses. The Bedminster club hosted the 2017 United States Women’s Open, and his club in Virginia was the site of the 2017 Senior P.G.A. Championship.The P.G.A. of America chose Trump Bedminster to host the 2022 championship in 2014, before Trump was a candidate for president. But on Jan. 10, the organization’s president, Jim Richerson, said in a video statement: “It has become clear that conducting the P.G.A. Championship at Trump Bedminster would be detrimental to the P.G.A. of America brand, and would put at risk the P.G.A.’s ability to deliver our many programs, and sustain the longevity of our mission.”The next day, the chief executive of the R&A, the organization that conducts the British Open, said its flagship event would not return to Trump Turnberry, a golf course in Scotland owned by Trump, for “the foreseeable future.” Turnberry, purchased by Trump seven years ago, has hosted the British Open, the oldest of golf’s four men’s majors, four times, most recently in 2009. It previously hosted the Women’s Open in 2015.Robert Wood Johnson IV, the American ambassador to Britain during the Trump administration, told multiple colleagues in February 2018 that he had been asked to see if the British government could help Turnberry host the British Open again, according to three people with knowledge of the episode. The British government said Johnson made no request regarding the British Open and Trump denied asking Johnson to press such a move.While the resort was not scheduled to be the site of this year’s event, it was in consideration for the 2023 British Open.“We will not return until we are convinced that the focus will be on the championship, the players and the course itself and we do not believe that is achievable in the current circumstances,” Martin Slumbers, the R&A chief executive, said.Southern Hills has been the setting for four previous P.G.A. Championships, the last in 2007 when Tiger Woods won the tournament. The course also hosted three U.S. Opens from 1958 to 2001. Moving the P.G.A. Championship to Oklahoma also locates a men’s major in a noncoastal setting. This year’s U.S. Open will be contested near San Diego while the 2021 P.G.A. Championship will be held on Kiawah Island along the South Carolina shoreline.“Excited to return to SHCC for the fifth time,” the P.G.A. of America wrote on its website Monday. “The course offers a tough-but-fair test for the strongest field in golf.”Southern Hills was designed in 1936 but underwent an $11 million restoration led by the noted golf-course architect Gil Hanse two years ago.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
