The PGA Tour has a lot to consider if-and-when it resumes play amid the long Corona Virus mandated layoff.
There’s the logistics of testing. There’s the logistics of lodging players and caddies, there’s the task of making sure anyone involved in the tournament has access to three square meals a day.
Then there’s the on-course situations.
The tour is contemplating some safety-related changes.
Those changes could see players putting with the flag stick in, playing without rakes in bunkers and pulling their own clubs to minimize contact with their caddies, just to name a few.
If those were put in, one Scott Stallings, who has won three times on tour, says he doubts players would get on board with the changes.
“I just don’t think there’s any way guys are going to do that,” he said. “Guys are not going to play for their livelihood with no rakes in the bunker and no caddies. That’s just not going to happen.
“I’m fully confident that there are going to be guys who choose not to play.”
Really?
Stallings probably jumped the gun on this.
If you watch tour events, players, most of the time, do pull their own clubs. Rarely do you see a tour caddie take a club out of the bag and hand it to his man. That’s one of the first things you learn as a caddie — let the player pull his own club. At local clubs, sometimes weekend players will ask the caddie to pull the club and hand it to them. But on tour? The only time the caddie pulls a club on a regular basis is when they hand the putter to the player after said player has hit his approach into the green and the caddie goes after the divot and doesn’t want to slow his player’s walk to the green.
As for the no rakes? It’s simple to use the Augusta National model employed at The Masters. There are guys who rake the bunkers on each hole. No rakes laying on the ground near bunkers on the course during The Masters.
Seems Stallings may have un-earthed an interesting idea.
How about not raking bunkers at all, a move that would actually make them the difficult hazards they’re supposed to be.
You might recall the 2010 PGA a Whistling Straits where they had all these nasty little sand traps scattered everywhere. They played as hazards, no grounding of clubs. Dustin Johnson grounded his in one on the 72nd hole and got hit with a penalty. People were standing in those things so they became nasty to play out of.
How about if professional golf went back to no raking of bunkers, period.
Used to be that way as you can see in the photo above from the Old Course at St. Andrews taken way back when.
Interesting scenario. We’ll probably never see that — but just think about the fun!
