The PGA Tour rolled out an ambitious 2019-20 schedule completion, followed by a 2020-21 schedule start (minus the suddenly-defunct Greenbrier Classic and cancelled Canadian and Barbasol stops). But this comment from the PGA Tour’s Andy Pazder is certainly accurate, though insensitive to players who have COVID-19 concerns.
From a teleconference featuring operations heads Andy Pazdur and Tyler Dennis in support of the schedule rollout:
Q. What about the players who don't feel comfortable? There are going to be players who don't feel comfortable coming back. What happens to those players if you start and they're not comfortable coming back playing again?
ANDY PAZDER: That's a question I think you need to direct to individual players. My only experience with anything like this I guess would be the first few tournaments following 9/11. We had players that were uneasy about air travel. That's one of the beauties of being a PGA TOUR member; you're an independent contractor. You're not required to be at any PGA TOUR event. So they have that discretion to play tournaments where they favor the golf course or tournaments in this instance, to your question, they may or may not feel comfortable. But that's an individual player decision.
So I would direct you to reach out to some of the players that you know to get their direct perspective. I can't speak on their behalf as it relates to that.
Athletes in other sports have already begun to openly question the sanity of quarantining in the same hotels. For example, in baseball, which has considered a concept of stationary games and hotels, normally not-outspoken players are sensing their safety and sanity is not being taken into account (Bill Shaikin reports on the comments of Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw).
The PGA Tour’s plan is to have robust testing, as Rex Hoggard reports, and the repeated mention of this key point was reassuring. So was the plan to only go forward if testing is not being taken away from those on the front lines or more in need.
Details of how things work on course are still being worked out:
TYLER DENNIS: Yeah, so that's another part of our analysis that we've been working on, you know, from a health and safety point of view, but even with the rules officials, for example. So if you think about how a player and a caddie travel throughout their daily competition routine, we've looked at -- we've mapped out and are still in the process of finalizing what that day looks like, because we know that golf can be played in a safe way that abides by social distancing guidelines, and we're seeing that in many spaces across the country, by the way, at the amateur level. But we can apply some of those same principles to golf on the PGA TOUR.
So anyway, from the driving range to the first tee, all kinds of little details, scorecards and bunker rakes and flagsticks and how we can make sure all that is done in a socially distanced way and make sure that things stay safe and clean and sanitized. So there's a big project going on to think about those details, and as we get closer, we'll certainly share with you guys those details of how that day would look.
But in general I think that the daily life of a PGA TOUR golfer and his caddie won't be tremendously different. We're just going to have to have some nuances to relate to social distancing and safe sanitation practices.
Not addressed and still not clear beyond safety and logistics: the optics of returning and using resources in markets that are still under strain, and what damage that could do to the PGA Tour’s reputation.
