Plenty of changes as golf returns
FORT WORTH, Texas — Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson were together on the first tee Tuesday morning, just like they were three weeks ago at Seminole for a charity match that was the first live golf on television in 66 days. This was different. They were not wearing microphones and their caddies were at their sides, including Harry Diamond, who had been quarantined at McIlroy’s guest house in Florida the past two weeks. They will be playing for a $7.5-million US purse, along with more ranking points than have ever been distributed at Colonial. This was real. It just didn’t seem that way. With no spectators and limited access, it felt like Colonial had been rented out for a corporate outing, only the employees happened to be the best players in the world — McIlroy and Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm and Xander Schauffele — all eager to return to work.
Golf is back.
It’s just not back to normal, and there’s no telling how long that will take, or what that will even mean.
“You can’t go into this thing thinking it’s going to be normal because it’s not,” Thomas said. “I would say 2020 is beyond a bizarre year so far, and especially in the world of sports. If we all want to get back and play the game that we love — and not just for us but for the fans and everybody at home — we’re just going to have to get over the fact that it’s going to be different and be a little weird.”
Weird was having a cotton swab on the end of a long, skinny stick that reached deep into the nasal cavity. This is a “condition of competition.” In medical terms, it’s a PCR test to detect active infection of the coronavirus, and every player, caddie and essential personnel has to take one upon arrival.
Ropes were in place, even without fans. Television cables run along the rope lines, and this helps keep mowers away.
Signs at Colonial preach social distancing, and this being golf, the signs said six feet (two metres) was roughly two club lengths. Violations were plenty on Tuesday, from caddies and players riding next to each other in carts to the range, or a coach, caddie and player huddled together to set up a putting camera.
Then again, they’re all in the “bubble” the tour is trying to create for the return to reduce as much risk as possible. All have been tested.
Ryan Palmer, a Colonial member chosen to hit the first tee shot, says he has been ultra-aware of precautions during the three months the COVID-19 pandemic shut down golf. That didn’t alleviate his anxiety after his test.
“I won’t lie to you, I was kind of nervous waiting for the results,” he said.
Players talk about needing to get it right with more eyeballs than usual — motor sports is the only other major sport that has resumed in America. But there’s only so much they can do. That’s why commissioner Jay Monahan said he was confident in the plan to return, but “we won’t be comfortable until we’re told we can be comfortable.”