Coronavirus scrambles golf
Masters to November, British Open canceled
Professional golf hasn’t been immune from the coronavirus, and the sport had a major shakeup Monday when the British Open — the world’s oldest golf tournament — was canceled for the first time since World War II.
The game’s leading organizers released a joint statement Monday that mapped out how they hope to contest as many of the major championships as possible. The announcement between the PGA Tour, European Tour, LPGA, USGA, R&A, PGA of America and the Masters Tournament came on what would have been the start of Masters week. Instead, the Masters was pushed back more than seven months to Nov. 12-15
“This is a difficult and challenging time for everyone coping with the effects of this pandemic. We remain very mindful of the obstacles ahead, and each organization will continue to follow the guidance of the leading public health authorities, conducting competitions only if it is safe and responsible to do so,” the joint statement said.
“While more details will be shared in the weeks and months to come, we, like all of you, will continue to focus on all mandated precautions and guidelines to fight against the coronavirus,” Augusta National Golf Club chairman Fred Ridley said in a statement.
“We want to emphasize that our future plans are incumbent upon favorable counsel and direction from health officials. Provided that occurs and we can conduct the 2020 Masters, we intend to invite those professionals and amateurs who would have qualified for our original April date …”
The U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York, which traditionally finishes on Father’s Day, was rescheduled to Sept. 17-20.
“We are hopeful that postponing the championship will offer us the opportunity to mitigate health and safety issues while still providing us with the best opportunity to conduct the U.S. Open this year,” USGA CEO Mike Davis said in a statement.
The U.S. Women’s Open has been pushed back to Dec. 10-13, but will stay at Houston’s Champions Golf Club.
The U.S. Senior Open at Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island, which was scheduled for June 24-28, was canceled, as was the U.S. Women’s Senior Open slated for Brooklawn CC in Fairfield, Connecticut.
“Canceling this year’s Senior Open championships was a very difficult decision to make,” Davis said. “Not only are they important pillars of our championship schedule, but we also value our relationships with both Newport Country Club and Brooklawn Country Club and we were looking forward to staging incredible events this summer. Given the ongoing health and safety issues related to COVID19 and the significant consolidation of schedules into the back half of 2020, including the postponement of the U.S. Women’s Open and U.S. Open, we felt it necessary to make these unfortunate adjustments to our 2020 championship plans.”
The USGA said next year’s
Senior Open, which was already awarded to Omaha CC, will be played in Nebraska as scheduled. The Senior Open is scheduled through 2022, though the Women’s Senior Open does not currently have a venue for next year.
The PGA Tour’s return to New England with the Northern Trust at TPC Boston, the first leg of the threetournament FedEx Cup playoffs, has been pushed back a week to Aug. 20-23. The Tour hopes that the FedEx Cup will have a Labor Day finish — something that was the highlight of the Norton stop from 2003-2018.
“We’re lucky relative to the rest of the sports landscape. August is a long way out, it provides us a lot of opportunity to let some of the fluidity that everybody is experiencing with the virus sort of settle in and we’ll hopefully have a clearer line of sight in the very near future as to what all of our futures hold — sports or no sports,” Northern Trust tournament director Julie Tyson said. “As it relates to the Northern Trust, we’re planning full steam ahead. It’s going to look like the same familiar, great event the Greater Boston area has come to know and love for a lot of years.”
The tour has canceled or rescheduled all events through May 17. The Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut, is still scheduled for June 25-28.
“It’s a complex situation, and we want to balance the commitments to our various partners with playing opportunities for our members — while providing compelling competition to our fans — but all of that must be done while navigating the unprecedented global crisis that is impacting every single one of us,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “Events of this size are not easy to move.”
Tyson said the different golf organizations coming together to formulate a new schedule started shortly after The Players Championship was canceled following the first round of play on March 12.
The Massachusetts Open is held on the three days before the start of the U.S. Open, and this year’s event scheduled for Taconic Golf Club in Williamstown is still on schedule, but Mass Golf executive director and CEO Jesse Menachem said it was “under review.”
“We will know more in another week,” he said in a text message.
Wannamoisett Country Club in Rumford, Rhode Island, hosts one of the top amateur events in the country — The Northeast Amateur scheduled for June 24-27. The tournament is still slated to go on as scheduled, but it is clearly far from certain.
“We will probably need to make a decision by the end of the month,” tournament chairman Ben Tuthill said in a text message. “Fingers crossed we can have the tournament.”
The 149th Open Championship was to be played in July at Royal St. George’s. It will remain there in 2021, while St. Andrews, which was to host the 150th edition in 2021, will retain the honor a year later in 2022.
The PGA Championship, the first major to postpone, will remain at San Francisco’s Harding Park, but move from mid-May to Aug. 6-9.
When it becomes safe to do so, golf looks to take its place as providing a welcome distraction.
“Sports has always provided a role for healing in difficult challenges and we look forward to playing our little role in providing some of that relief,” Tyson said.