PGA TOUR CANCELS PLAYERS TOURNEY
All events through Texas Open nixed
Hours after play ended on Thursday at the Players Championship and with the tournament set to continue without spectators, the PGA Tour reversed course and cancelled its flagship event.
“Just in shock really,” Canadian Nick Taylor told Postmedia minutes after the decision to cancel the event to help prevent the spread of COVID -19. “It’s the right thing to do. But there’s a lot to take in how the world has changed in the last 24 hours.”
Spectators were onsite watching first round play at TPC Sawgrass on Thursday when tour commissioner Jay Monahan announced at noon that during Friday’s second round spectators would not be allowed in. Then with one round of play already in the books, the decision was made to cancel the tournament as well as every upcoming tournament until after the Masters.
“It is with regret that we are announcing the cancellation of The Players Championship,” The PGA Tour statement read. “We have also decided to cancel all PGA Tour events — across all of our tours — in the coming weeks, through the Valero Texas Open.”
Augusta National has previously stated they plan to go ahead with the Masters, although an update is expected next week.
Mackenzie Hughes said Thursday that he thought the tour made the right call.
“I think the tour is taking the right stance,” he said. “With every major sports league being suspended, we needed to be on the same page. I obviously love to play and compete, but there are bigger issues going on in the world.”
The LPGA is postponing its next three events.
With the NBA, NHL and MLB all choosing to suspend their seasons and the NCAA March Madness cancelled, there were those questioning why the PGA Tour seemed intent on continuing play.
Earlier Thursday, Monahan was defending the decision to be the only sports league running.
“Obviously, we’re an outdoor sport, we’re not in a stadium, and here this week at TPC Sawgrass our players are making their way over 400 acres,” Monahan said. “And so we feel like we have, because of the nature of that and the fact that you’ve got 144 players here and over the course of a round our players generally do socially distance themselves, we felt like by taking this step to address the problem with our fans, we’re in a position where we can continue to operate the events as of right now.”
Ten hours later that opinion had changed.