PGA commissioner Jay Monahan optimistic about welcoming fans back by end of year
Fans won’t be allowed back in to PGA Tour events through the rest of the season amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The best bet for spectators to be allowed back in, commissioner Jay Monahan said on Wednesday ahead of the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, is the U.S. Open on Sept. 17-20 in New York.
“I know that the USGA continues to work with the state of New York and is making plans to return fans,” Monahan said. “If I had to guess, that would be the first week that we would do so.
“We’re spending a lot of time in each of the subsequent tournaments or each of the tournaments in the fall working on a number of different ways to stage the event, which includes full capacity, partial capacity and obviously the way that we’re operating now, which is no spectators, and that will be largely dependent on what we hear from the communities where we play.”
The remaining tournaments left on the schedule this season, including the PGA of America’s PGA Championship, announced on Monday that they will be held without fans due to the coronavirus. The Memorial Tournament this week was initially slated to become the first event since play resumed to welcome fans back in, though that plan was scrapped as the pandemic is still raging throughout the country.
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There were more than 3.4 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States as of Tuesday afternoon, according to The New York Times, and more than 136,000 deaths attributed to it. The country set a single-day record on Friday, recording more than 68,000 new cases, and has averaged more than 61,000 new cases a day over the past week.
There are only five events left on the Tour’s schedule before the FedExCup Playoffs events kick off. The U.S. Open is scheduled to start on Sept. 17 at Winged Foot Golf Club in New York.
By the time the playoffs come around, Monahan said, they hope to have a better idea of how to run tournaments in the final months of the year.
“I think as we get into early August and mid-August, then we’ll start making some decisions about where we’re going to be post-Tour Championship with our events,” Monahan said.
“We’re hopeful that you’re going to see fans at our tournaments when we get to the back half of the year, or quarter of the year.”
Working with other commissioners
The PGA Tour was one of the first sports to return after the coronavirus halted nearly every league worldwide in March.
Though golf is different than most — it’s played outdoors on a massive course where players and caddies are able to space out, all things that help curb the spread of the virus — Monahan said Wednesday that he’s been in contact with his counterparts from other professional leagues in the country as they prepare to either resume play or kick off their seasons themselves.
“I think what [the commissioners are] most curious about is, what are you learning now that you’re in operation and that your plans are underway, and what are some of the things that we could benefit from,” Monahan said. “I think a lot of those things … are tied to the adjustments that we’ve made, and just being able to explain to them what we saw, what we experienced and then why we made the adjustments we’ve made, and how that may or may not apply to what they’re going to experience when they return to play themselves.
“It’s also what am I doing and our movements and some other things, but that’s predominantly it.”
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