Canadian leads charge to bring back sports
Tothe tasked with launching historic pga event
Do you ever have a feeling that everyone is watching you? Next week, the entire sports world will be focused on Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, as the PGA Tour becomes the first major North American sports league to return to action since the COVID-19 shutdown three months ago.
Sports- starved fans are sure to tune in and watch the Charles Schwab Challenge that will include the world’s top- five ranked golfers. Athletes from other professional sports will be interested in how safe things look and seeing a testing protocol in action. All levels of government in the U. S. and Canada will be watching to see what lessons can be learned.
Tournament director Michael Tothe has overseen more than 100 golf events in his career and was asked if he ever remembers feeling this level of pressure and scrutiny.
“My first Canadian Amateur at Rivershore in Kamloops was stressful because I wanted to do it right,” Tothe told Postmedia from Colonial on Thursday. “That was a really hard week.”
Wait, what?
The man in charge of the first stop of the PGA Tour’s return to golf was born and raised in Limehouse, Ont., population 800, 10 minutes west of Georgetown and an hour northwest of Toronto.
After playing college golf in the U. S., Tothe’s career began in 1995 with the American Junior Golf Association as a tournament director. He then worked four years with Golf Canada where he ran tournaments — including the ’ 99 Canadian Amateur Championship in Kamloops — before eventually landing at Colonial Country Club in 2008. A PGA Tour event has been held annually at the famed Fort Worth club for more than 70 years.
“We’ve done some historic things at Colonial over 74 years of being at the same event,” he said. “We hosted Annika Sorenstam in 2003 when she played against the men, and hosted the 1991 U.S. Women’s Open, the 1941 men’s open. And then when they were building Sawgrass we hosted the Players Championship, but nothing tops this, that’s for sure.”
Like everyone else, Tothe was unsure what the future would hold as COVID- 19 took over North America in March. Like most of us, he tried to carry on as normally as possible in a wildly abnormal time.
For a PGA Tour tournament director that meant planning for a huge golf tournament with 120,000 spectators, early week proams, corporate hospitality events, and all the rest. The original date for this year’s Charles Schwab Challenge was May 21- 24. As tournament after tournament got cancelled, Tothe realized his event was next in line.
At the beginning of April the PGA Tour approached Colonial and asked if they would be open to moving to June. They were, and it was decided the tournament would take the June 11-14 date opened up by the cancellation of Tothe’s other hometown event, the RBC Canadian Open.
“When that joint release went out with the PGA Tour announcing us as the first stop, it was like, ‘ Whoa!’” he said.
Once it was decided there would be no fans, or proams, or corporate gatherings, the focus immediately switched to player safety, COVID-19 testing, and getting protocols in place for the first major North American sports event in three months. Any normal year, eight weeks before the tournament Tothe implements a “no- new- ideas” rule for his team so things can get finalized. This year, eight weeks ahead of the event, the brainstorming had just begun. Every what-if scenario had to be thought of. They received plenty of help from the tour and from medical professionals, always understanding there would have to be a fluidity to the event this year.
The tournament usually has 1,600 volunteers and 300 staff, but this year the scaleddown version has just 300 volunteers and 150 staff.
With players arriving this weekend, the time for talk is over.
“The role for us now in Fort Worth is to not persuade or convince, but to show the guys that when they get here it’s safe and that we’ve gone through the steps to make sure that it’s safe,” he said.
Many players will have taken tests prior to arriving in Fort Worth, but every player and caddy will be tested once they arrive, then thermal tested every day. The courtesy cars are all brand new and fresh off the lot. The players will be tested again at the end of the week before flying on PGA Tour chartered jets to South Carolina for the following week’s RBC Heritage Classic.
“We’re relishing the opportunity and we know that there are lives still being affected by COVID-19, we know the economy in certain sectors of the country isn’t great,” Tothe said. “With the recent events of Mr. Floyd’s death there have been some protests here in Fort Worth. They have been relatively peaceful ... but it’s been hard.”
show the guys that when
they get here it’s safe.