Schedule revamp gets season finished before football starts
The PGA Tour has eliminated a FedEx Cup playoff event as part of a revamped, tighter schedule that will allow its season to end a week before the football season begins.
Most of the changes to the 2018-19 schedule released Tuesday already had been announced. The final piece was where to put two new tournaments between the U.S. Open and British Open. Detroit-based Quicken Loans is calling its event the Rocket Mortgage Classic on June 27-30. It will be followed by the 3M Open in Minnesota and the John Deere Classic.
The tour will feature 46 events over 41 weeks, down from 48 tournaments this year.
The addition of new tournaments in Detroit and Minnesota is offset by eliminating the FedEx Cup playoff event in Boston, the Quicken Loans National that had been run by the Tiger Woods Foundation in the Washington, D.C. area, and a year off for the Houston Open and Greenbrier.
Houston and Greenbrier are to return to the fall portion of the schedule in 2019. The TPC Boston, meanwhile, will rotate with a New Yorkarea course every other year for the opening FedEx Cup playoff event.
Behind the tighter schedule was a desire for the tour to complete its season at the Tour Championship before the start of college football and the NFL. Key to the changes was the PGA Championship moving from August to May, and The Players Championship returning to March.
The wraparound season starts Oct. 4-7 with the Safeway Open in Napa, California, one week after the Ryder Cup in France. The Mexico Championship will move to the end of the West Coast Swing, giving Florida four straight tournaments in March.
The PGA Championship will be May 16-19 at Bethpage Black on Long Island, splitting part of the Texas swing — the AT&T Byron Nelson in Dallas will be the week before the PGA, and the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial will be the week after the PGA.
The RBC Canadian Open moves a week before the U.S. Open, held next year at Pebble Beach.
The tour really gets busy at the British Open, set for next year at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland. Top players then go straight to Tennessee for the FedEx Cup Invitational, a World Golf Championship in Memphis that replaces the event held at Firestone in Ohio.
The three playoff events are The Northern Trust at Liberty National in New Jersey; the BMW Championship at Medinah outside Chicago; and the Tour Championship, which will be Aug. 22-25 at East Lake in Atlanta.
Still to be determined is whether the PGA Tour will change the structure for the FedEx Cup, and how this new schedule will work in 2020 when the Olympics are in Japan from July 24 to Aug. 9. The Ryder Cup in 2020 will be Sept. 25-27 at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.
The 46 events include four tournaments held opposite World Golf Championships, and one opposite the British Open.
No matter what rankings or seedings say, she still looks capable of playing like someone who’s No. 1. Williams moved closer to an eighth title at the All England Club and 24th Grand Slam trophy overall — but first since missing more than a year while having a baby — by beating 52ndranked Camila Giorgi of Italy 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the quarterfinals Tuesday.
“This is only my fourth tournament back, so I don’t feel pressure,” Williams said.
“I’m just here just to be here and to prove that I’m back. And I feel like I’m back. I still have a long way to go to be where I was.”
Williams was seeded 25th by the All England Club, a nod to past success at the grass-court major, including titles the past two times she entered in 2015 and 2016.
She missed Wimbledon a year ago while pregnant and went about 16 months between Grand Slams, so her ranking is just outside the top 180. That will change now.
Next up for the 36-yearold is a match vs. No. 13 seed Julia Goerges of Germany, a 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 winner against No. 20 Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands.
This is all new for Goerges, who had never even been to a Grand Slam quarterfinal before this week. At Wimbledon, she lost in the first round each of the past five years.
Williams is 3-0 against Goerges, winning in straight sets each time, but “every match starts from zero,” Goerges said. “Everybody has the same chances to win.”
After their most recent meeting, in the French Open’s third round last month, Williams pulled out of that tournament, citing a chest muscle injury that made it too painful to serve.
After going a couple of weeks without hitting a serve, Williams has regained her ability with that stroke nicely at Wimbledon. She hit one at 122 mph against Giorgi, delivered six of her seven aces in the final set, and won 44 of the last 54 points she served.
It was the first time she’d needed to erase a real deficit this fortnight: Williams hadn’t dropped a set until facing Giorgi, who was in her first Grand Slam quarterfinal.
“After the first set, I was like, ‘All right, let’s go three sets.’ And that’s kind of what I thought . ... ‘I’ll just keep fighting,’” Williams said.
The other semifinal Thursday is No. 11 seed Angelique Kerber of Germany vs. No. 12 Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia. Kerber is a former No. 1 with two Grand Slam titles and was runner-up to Williams at Wimbledon two years ago. Ostapenko won last year’s French Open.
Kerber needed seven match points to close out No. 14 Daria Kasatkina of Russia 6-3, 7-5 at Centre