Retooled PGA Tour schedule could provide relief for fans

The PGA Tour’s retooled schedule is being called “aspirational” — acknowledging nothing can be certain in the age of coronavirus.

One thing is clear: Professional golf will have an eager and well-prepared audience if the Tour is able to fulfill its ambitions.

People starved for live sports should be able to digest ample content without batting an eye.

Binge-watching Tiger Woods instead of “Tiger King” could become a national craze as golf presents a steady stream of big events, culminating with the first November trip down Magnolia Lane for the 2020 Masters.

“If it comes off, it will have almost the feeling of serially watching the most dramatic events in golf,” Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee told reporters

during a conference call. “Like ‘Ozark,’ you can’t wait to watch the next one, the next one, the next one. Well, you won’t have to wait. It will come the very next week or couple of weeks.

“They will just be coming all at once.” The Tour’s new schedule hopes to complete three major championships, the threeweek FedEx Cup Playoffs and the Ryder Cup during the span of little more than three months, beginning Aug. 6-9 with the PGA Championship.

The schedule’s sweet spot could be an 11-day stretch in late September featuring the U.S. Open at iconic Winged Foot Golf Club in the suburban New York City region and the Ryder Cup at picturesque Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.

But much of the focus since the updated schedule was released last week has been on the Masters and Woods’ chances to defend his improbable 2019 win.

Now the tournament has been rescheduled for Nov. 12-15, when the fall foliage and cooler temperatures will present a different golf course to viewers and a different challenge for players.

The date change immediately generated debate about whether playing in November will help or hinder Woods.

The 44-year-old battled a stiff back last month, leading him to skip the Arnold Palmer Invitational March 5-8 in Orlando and The Players Championship a week later outside Jacksonville.

Woods now will receive extra time to improve and prepare.

“Keeping in touch with him through and in the buildup to The Players Championship, it was sore,” said Golf Channel analyst Notah Begay, a close friend and former college teammate with Woods. “There wasn’t a lot of mobility. He was trying to fire it up, and it wasn’t responding to the levels that he felt like he needed to play.

“So he wanted to give it rest.” Weather conditions in the fall, however, could be challenging for a player who has undergone four back surgeries.

“Cold temperatures are not necessarily good on old backs,” Chamblee said.

Woods is not the only ailing star who’ll receive extra time to heal.

Four-time major champion Brooks Koepka, the runner-up at the 2019 Masters, had been struggling to find his form ever since stem cell surgery to his left knee in August.

Even so, the clear Masters favorite at this point is world No. 1 Rory McIlroy, who at age 31 looks to become the sixth player to complete the career grand slam.

Cooler, damper conditions at Augusta National favor golf’s best driver of the ball. McIlroy’s superb physical conditioning and experience should allow him to withstand an avalanche of big-time events.

But everyone around the game — players, fans, media members, tournament sponsors, vendors, local charities, etc. — should be a winner if the Tour is able to play its revamped schedule.

“It’s going to mean that we are in a better place than we are today,” Golf Channel analyst Justin Leonard said. “You’re also going to have guys — every player in the world will have had three, four, whatever, however many months off, so they are going to be itching to play. The fields are going to be incredible when they do begin.

“It’s going to be a release not only for the players and people involved running these golf tournaments but for golf fans in general.”

The next tournament on the PGA Tour schedule remains Colonial on May 21-24, but few expect the longstanding event will be played. After all, organizers already canceled the 2020 Open Championship and rescheduled it for July 15–18, 2021, at Royal St George’s Golf Club on the southwest coast of England.

Yet, golf could return more quickly than other sports because competitors can maintain distance from each other. Whether fans would be allowed at tournaments is a looming question.

A major championship or a Ryder Cup without fans certainly would be uncharted waters, but golf also could make a big splash during the late summer or fall if other sports like football and basketball remain on hold.

“If we are playing without spectators, we’ll still sort of be cooped up in our homes, and by then, there will be nothing left in streaming services to have watched that we haven’t seen,” Chamblee said. “So we’ll all be watching sporting events. So in an odd way, it could be the respite from the worry that we all have.

“It could be good for golf.”