FedExCup playoffs finale preview
Examine how the PGA Tour navigated pandemic challenges to make it this far and check out the storied East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
ATLANTA – On a hauntingly silent morning back in March, players cleaned out their lockers in the clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass and headed into the unknown.
The Players Championship near the PGA Tour’s headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, had been canceled the night before when most of the sports world went dark as COVID-19 spread across the globe.
That morning, the calendar read Friday the 13th.
“It’s like when the zombies have taken over. It’s really, really scary,” Brendan Steele said before departing for his cross-country travels to his California home.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who earlier in the week announced the Tour’s signing of a new media rights deal said to be worth more than $7 billion over nine years, addressed the media that morning and in short order announced the next three Tour events were canceled. Then word came forth the Masters was postponed to the fall.
“Our goal now,” an exhausted Monahan said, “is to focus on a plan for the near and long-term and maintain the strength we’ve built through our organization over the past 51 years, and I'm confident we'll do exactly that.”
His confidence was rewarded. The following week Monahan’s staff got to work in conjunction with the Tour’s policy board, the 16-member Players Advisory Council, other members of the Tour, tournament organizers, title sponsors, TV partners, government officials and health experts in the field of infectious diseases, the Federal Coronavirus Task Force and other specialists and laboratory directors.
“I told Jay he owed me a few new iPhones because (my) battery was dying so often from being on the phone so much,” joked Kevin Kisner, a player director for the PGA Tour policy board. “As things progressed and we knew we were going to have to come back to a different way of life on the PGA Tour, the calls ramped up, the amount of time that we spent on the phone was longer. We all had to come up with an agreement on how we were going to do things.
“It was really a remarkable job done by all in a short amount of time, and the fact that we teed it up in June I think is something that is nothing short of a miracle.”
The titanic work produced a blueprint that is ever evolving titled “Return to Golf,” a plan outlining safety and health protocols, from layered and constant testing to social distancing measures to spectators being forbidden. The goal? Create a “bubble” of protection for players, caddies, staff, media and volunteers at events.
A sort of a shelter-at-home standard on steroids.
As well, in consultation with golf’s governing boards, title sponsors and
tournament organizers, a new schedule was formed.
After a 13-week break – the longest stoppage of play on the PGA Tour since World War II – golf resumed in June with the Charles Schwab Challenge at revered Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.
Q-tips up nostrils became as important as the yardage book, social distancing as important as the putter. Hooking up with friends at a high-end restaurant came to a halt. Handshakes and hugs were bypassed. Large group gatherings anywhere were frowned upon. Playing in silence became the norm.
All those inside the ropes and the bubble bought in, and the Tour hasn’t stopped playing since, traveling to 12 states across three times zones. There were a few bumps along the way, especially in the beginning, but the culmination of a long road well-traveled is this week’s Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club, the finale of the FedExCup Playoffs, where the top 30 players vie for the $15 million bonus awarded the victor.
“I was confident that we had the right plan,” Monahan said. “But I was uncertain as to whether or not, like everybody else, you'd be able to get to this point. As gut-wrenching as that day and the weeks to follow were, as we ultimately canceled or postponed nearly 30 percent of our season, the adaptability, innovation and collaboration that has brought us to this week is incredibly gratifying.
“As a sport, we have persevered through this pandemic and have found a way to keep our Tour moving forward.”
The numbers speak to the success amidst the pandemic. The Tour has gone five consecutive weeks without a positive COVID-19 test among players and caddies. Since the restart, 3,651 on-site tests have been administered with seven positives among players and four among caddies. In other words, the tournaments played have outnumbered positive tests.
“It's a testament to everybody involved in the events, everyone on the PGA Tour for supplying everything we need to make sure we're not putting ourselves at risk,” world No. 2 Jon Rahm said. “It's a testament to all the players and caddies out there that have been as careful as possible to have so many individuals go in different places, different weeks, and still stay clean for so long.
“We see other sports struggling with it, and we all keep our mindset even when we go home. I would like to hang out with my friends and I would like to do a lot of things and go to restaurants and have a good time and a weekend off, but I can't. You can't risk it, because I know I can test positive and indirectly put somebody else in danger.
“It's clear that if you do what you're supposed to do, sports can go on.”
Many players thought the sport was going to stop after the third week back at The Travelers Championship in Connecticut. The week before, Hilton Head Island, home to the RBC Heritage in South Carolina, was more akin to a spring break in Florida instead of a sheltered up city during a pandemic.
Then, at the Travelers, Cameron Champ and two caddies tested positive (which led to withdrawals of Brooks Koepka and Graeme McDowell). World No. 6 Webb Simpson also withdrew when a member of his family tested positive. By week’s end, two more players – Dylan Frittelli and Denny McCarthy – tested positive. Monahan flew up to Connecticut. “When he flew up to Travelers, I thought that was a really big deal, because players were scared that he was flying up to shut it down,” Simpson said. “But he went the opposite way. He said, ‘Listen, this is here to stay. We're going to have to deal with it. As long as we're being smart, we're going to keep going.’ ”
Players adapted with increased discipline, and the Tour revised portions of the safety protocols going forward.
“I think it's a huge deal that honestly hasn't been made a big enough deal,” Simpson added about the Tour’s return. “You see other leagues, and they're having all sorts of issues with the coronavirus.
“Our numbers are so shockingly low compared to other organizations or groups of people, and I never thought that we'd have this smooth of a process. It probably hasn't been smooth behind the scenes, but I feel like Jay Monahan, the board, the PAC, all the PGA Tour staff, whoever has been responsible for keeping us going, has been huge.”
As for the play inside the ropes, it’s been nothing short of stellar. Six of the current top-10 players in the world have accounted for nine of the 13 wins since the restart – Dustin Johnson (2), Rahm (2), Collin Morikawa (2), Justin Thomas, Simpson and Bryson DeChambeau, who turned into Paul Bunyan with his weight gain and became a powerful force that attracted massive attention to golf. As well, Daniel Berger, ranked 13th, won the first tournament of the return to golf.
By no means, however, does the work end with Monday’s conclusion of The Tour Championship. The Tour has adopted a week-to-week mindset that won’t wander.
The Tour took a financial hit in the tens of millions of dollars without proams, spectators and hospitality suites, and the absence of those three pillars cannot continue much longer. But this week a robust, 50-event schedule for the 2020-2021 season that begins next week was unveiled, with every tournament fully funded. Six majors are on the schedule, including the U.S. Open at Winged Foot in two weeks and the Masters in November.
And pro-ams will return in three weeks in the Dominican Republic.
“I don't think there's really a word that I could say or really anything I can say to describe how impressive it is,” Thomas said of the Tour’s return. “The Tour had a great plan in place, but most importantly they stuck to it, and we stuck to it.
“Everybody did everything that they could. We obviously had some little things kind of go on there at the beginning of the restart. But it’s been a team effort. It's not like Commissioner Monahan could just say, ‘All right, guys, everyone needs to do this,’ and then it's done. Everyone needs to do their part, and that includes the Tour officials, the staff, the workers on the grounds of the tournaments, the caddies, the players, the people in the bubble, the trainers, the physios.
“It's a selfless decision. You can't do stuff that's going to benefit you that could jeopardize the entire Tour, and everyone has done an unbelievable job of that, to make sure that we're here in Atlanta this week.”