PGA Tour Restart Without The Fans? — Why Not?

One of those really annoying constants on the PGA Tour are the old guys/gals in their tournament garb holding up both arms, perhaps armed with one of those “Quiet Please” paddles.

While the PGA Tour and the rest of professional sports are on hold because of the Corona Virus, there’s plenty of time to figure out what things will look like if/and/when the Tour cranks up again.

One option under heavy consideration is staging events with no spectators on site.

No need for those “Quiet Please” paddles, they’ll have plenty of peace and quiet and that might not be all that bad.

First thing to consider is that it may be a while before Americans or any other nationalities are allowed to attend sporting events and stand should-to-shoulder.

College football is already throwing out a scenario that sees its season run from February 2021 to May 2021.

As for the NFL, well, they’ll have the draft as planned in less than 10 days, Commissioner Roger Goodell will oversee things from his basement.  But at least we’ll have some form of live sport, even if it is simply the re-stocking of NFL rosters with wide-eyed collegians.

The Tour is reaching for a possible June start.  Tough to imagine crowds allowed to gather that soon.

Jack Nicklaus feels his Memorial Tournament won’t be held until mid-July.  If that’s the case, the Tour is losing most of its season and there’s at least one national writer, John Hawkins, who thinks the Tour is totally bowing down to its major sponsor — Federal Express — no matter what the cost.

Here’s an excerpt from Hawkins’ musing in Tuesday’s edition of The Morning Read:

At least 20 events are almost certain not to be held, which makes the decision to try and salvage the FedEx Cup playoffs a pathetic submission to the Tour’s money-grubbing sensibilities.

Commissioner Jay Monahan is a smart guy, but he has been on this earth long enough to know that you can’t stage a postseason halfway into a regular season, with just one of the four majors factoring into the balance of the competitive equation. Welcome to the only sports league owned and operated by a Tennessee courier.

What FedEx wants, FedEx gets. We’re left with a $70 million raffle so Camp Ponte Vedra can placate its most important partnership, which is kind of like the tail wagging Dino the Dinosaur. Why not turn the first two playoff bouts into standard events, then move the Tour Championship to the week after the Masters? It can get a bit chilly in Atlanta by mid-November, but we’re talking about 30 guys playing in optimal sunlight for a $15 million bonus.

So yeah, Hawk is a little miffed by the Tour.  Even referring to The Sheriff Of Nottingham (aka Commish Monahan) and his Sinister Band Of Henchmen as “money-grubbing.”

Hey, Hawk may have a point, you don’t reach THREE BILLION in revenues without a lot of “money-grubbing.”

But we digress.  Back to Tour events with no fans on site.  Nothing new about that.  Our high school matches were played in front of no one.  College matches are pretty solitary.  Ever checked out a Korn-Ferry Tour event on Thursday and Friday?  Plenty of European Tour events are very lonely on Thursdays and Fridays and earlier this season in some Middle East countries, there might have been 30 people actually out on the course following the lead group.

So can we have golf without crowds?  Why not?

Patrick Reed might love it.  Not one single taunt, no one yelling “Cheater!”

The logistics are tricky.  Getting from place to place is tough unless you use private aviation like the Mickelsons and Woods of the world and you can bet Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka and other top 10 guys don’t fly commercial.

They would have to test all the tournament participants and caddies a couple of weeks before a return to play.  Just to be sure.

So at the end of the day, it’s easier said than done.

Kinda like re-starting the United States economy.  We all want to see it, but we also want everyone to be safe.

Easier said than done.