PGA Tour Presents Players With Health & Safety Plans, Including A Recommendation To Use Avis Rental Cars

GolfDigest.com’s Brian Wacker reports on the 37-page “deck” provided to players and PGA Tour constituents outlining the “Return To Golf Events” starting June 11-14 at Colonial.

Chief among the plan’s tenets is that COVID-19 testing will be required of players as a condition of competition, similar to that of the organization’s drug policy. Testing protocols will include three methods—a questionnaire, thermal reading and nasal swab or saliva test. Players and caddies will have to be screened pre-travel, upon arrival with all three methods and daily with a questionnaire and thermal reading.

According to the document, the results from nasal swabs will take at least 24-48 hours. Players who are waiting for test results may practice or play on-site but will have no access to course facilities.

Parking lot shoe change for you.

Should someone test positive for COVID-19, they will be required to self isolate for a minimum of 10 days with no subsequent symptoms, or two negative test results at least 24 hours apart. The Tour and tournament would provide support throughout the isolation period and travel home by car would be allowed if deemed safe.

So just remember, rent with Avis and hopefully they’ll be flexible on the drop off location. Likely to be DFW but could be somewhere in Florida, too.

Speaking of Avis, the PGA Tour’s “official rental car” got a nice shoutout in the document’s transportation slide that, along with select other screen grabs, were shared with me:

As for testing, the document notes players, caddies and volunteers will get that picked up by the Tour. Media? No. And the television crew situation will be addressed by the networks, with information coming at a later date.

Here is the testing summed up by Rex Hoggard at GolfChannel.com:

Results for the PCR nasal swabs will take 24-48 hours and those waiting for results can still practice and play but will not have access to other onsite facilities.

“In implementing our testing plan, we will not do so in a manner that takes away from testing and medical resources in the communities in which we play or for affected groups in those communities,” the plan read.

Those who test positive will not be allowed to continue with the competition and, per federal and local health guidelines, they will be isolated for at least 10 days. A player who tests positive after making the cut at an event will receive last place earnings.

And one can presume, though one never knows when talking about something so precious, last place FedExCup points.

The document’s is, mercifully, reassuring when it comes to the Tour’s priorities.

I found this item on scoring and roping of interest, though it was the Masters scoreboard clipart that temporarily had me wondering if manual scoreboards were making some sort of retro-infused comeback.

Of course it’s not all about health and safety, commerce must go on and various acronyms are exploring all forms of exposure. Wait, maybe that’s not the best word these days.

Speaking of commerce, the ten-percenters and their stand-ins are not welcome on site, but the other folks who can work out a few kinks will be there.

Oddly, the on-site media will be allowed, but not tested, just temperature checked and asked questions. That could return misleading numbers since we all know how hot writers get when shuttles fail to run on time or the WiFi drops to double-digit download speeds.

On the full Orwellian front, “pool” reporters will be used to lob softer balls than normal. And if they bring a recording device capturing what someone actually says, life in prison awaits.

Oh, and approval of interviews of the independent contractors, is necessary:

All in all I’d say the plan appears well thought out and logical, with caddies getting to act like they normally do, the necessary folks allowed on site and safety well-considered. But it’s also amazing how many questions need resolution with just under four weeks to go and the folks working in enclosed spaces—media and TV—not inside of the regrettably termed “bubble”.

More News You Just Didn't Need To Know This Week: PGA of America Locks In Previously Announced 2030 PGA At Southern Hills

A decade from now and the lone golf writer will look back and say, wow, the PGA of America locked in the 2030 PGA Championship after previously having already announced this likelihood. All while the country was in a pandemic with a few thousand people dying daily and golf fans only wondering if the 2020 PGA will be played. How odd, said the lone golf writer.

Anyway, what was official became more official with the recently restored Southern Hills returning to major championship golf ten years from now. Here is something on the Hanse Design restoration by The Fried Egg and some flyovers in this YouTube video below so you can start imaging how it’ll play in May, 2030.

Olive, Mabel And Andrew Cotter Are Back, Zoom Style

More brilliance from BBC commentator and golf podcaster Andrew Cotter. Previous versions here and here, in case you’ve been in a coma.

Still having the company meetings online. pic.twitter.com/aR3LfuSdKl

— Andrew Cotter (@MrAndrewCotter) May 11, 2020

Player: Vijay Singh Has No Business Playing Korn Ferry Tour

With so much going on in the world far more grave than whether Vijay Singh takes up a spot in a Korn Ferry Tour event, plenty have wondered why the story got so much attention.

Before I direct you to Mike Van Sickle’s guest piece for MorningRead.com, I’ll say its pretty simply a case of entitlement.

When Harvard and the Lakers were found to have accepted PPP funds during the COVID-19 pandemic, they returned the funds because no sane individual could make a case for either entity being entitled to funds meant to keep workers on payrolls.

While Phil Mickelson and others backed the 57-year-old Singh’s right to take a spot away from a player trying to build or rebuild their career on a developmental tour, it is the golf equivalent of the Lakers taking money they do not need.

From Van Sickle’s guest piece, and I do feel a channeling of another writer named Van Sickle with the closing zinger here:

The player who gets bumped from the field may be stocking grocery-store shelves to pay his mounting bills, such as what KFT player Erik Barnes has been doing at a Publix in southwest Florida during the coronavirus-imposed golf shutdown, just so Singh can get some “reps” to get ready when senior golf resumes.

Obviously, the rules say Singh can play. A PGA Tour player can dip into the KFT if he isn’t eligible to play in a PGA Tour event during the same week. Singh, a World Golf Hall of Fame member with a lifetime exemption, is not in the field at the PGA Tour’s Charles Schwab Challenge on June 11-14 in Fort Worth, Texas. So, he can play his local KFT event, which is practically in his backyard. He lives in the Ponte Vedra Beach area and is a divot-making machine at the TPC Sawgrass range. Singh is within his rights to play, under tour rules, even if it’s like Phil Hellmuth showing up for the weekly $10 buy-in poker night at your neighbor’s house to “get some reps.”

For Reasons Unknown, Files: Steve Stricker And PGA Of America Announce Two More 2020 Ryder Cup Cart Drivers

I stand corrected: the vice captains no longer drive their own carts. At least, in pandemic-free times.

However, if the 2020 Ryder Cup happens this year, these task force favorites may return behind the wheel to retrieve bananas and shuttle WAGs.

Wait, that’s not happening for a while, either.

Anyway, why anyone thought the world needed to know Zach Johnson and Davis Love were joining Jim Furyk as Steve Stricker’s kitchen cabinet when the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 topped 80,000, is beyond me.

The brevity of Joel Beall’s GolfDigest.com item about sums up the importance of this “news”.

Fort Worth Mayor Has No Reservations About Colonial Return; PGA Tour Reportedly Plans To Use Chartered Flights Between Events

ESPN.com’s Bob Harig interviewed Fort Worth mayor Betsy Price, who has been working closely with the PGA Tour on plans to present the rescheduled Charles Schwab Challenge June 11-14. The mayor says she has no reservations about moving forward with the event and addressed the primary hurdle presented by Commissioner Jay Monahan: testing.

Price said that as of now, widespread testing is not available in Fort Worth, which the PGA Tour has said on a few occasions would be one of their criteria for returning at any of the events it plans to stage. But Price said she expected that to change "in about 10 days.''

"It has just been for people who show virus symptoms, but we have moved beyond that,'' Price said. "Pretty soon anyone will be able to get them, and that is what we are striving for. We're a town of 900,000 people, so it's going to be difficult for any city to test every one of their residents. But the testing is going to be much more robust.''

Complicating matters in the area: neighboring Dallas County saw a record-tying number of cases in its Monday report and the area also expects to lose federally funded testing capable of handling 1000 people per day even as numbers are going up.

Also, the current CDC guidelines on testing priorities fails to list professional golf or even anyone asymptomatic.

One question often asked about PGA Tour’s June return: air travel. A Golfweek report from Todd Kelly quotes Kevin Streelman, who said the plan is to use a chartered event between tournaments. I’m not sure how that affects the elite players who use private jets but it would seem to improve the chances of players not spreading the COVID-19 virus to air travelers while moving from city to city.

“There will probably be four, five, six of us who will split a plane to get to Colonial,” Streelman said. “The Tour has chartered planes, like big ones, for all the players and caddies in between events, trying to keep our bubble nice and tight.”

Oh it was a tight bubble already. But is anyone really wanting to be in a tight bubble of any kind just yet? Particularly one encased in hard surfaces with a robust air flow system? We’ll find out soon.

Bittersweet Monday At Harding Park On What Would Have Been PGA Championship Week

Will Gray talks to Harding Park GM Tom Smith on what would have been PGA Championship Monday for the San Francisco muni turned TPC.

Play has been robust at the course but thoughts are turning to a possible hosting in August.

Like with many PGA Tour events slated for later this year, there are still two distinct possibilities in terms of tournament operations: one that calls for the event to be played in front of at least some fans, and one that would include no fans at all. While Smith still holds out hope for fans to be able to experience a “traditional PGA Championship” in what would be the first PGA played on the West Coast since 1998, he admitted that course officials will be reacting to – and not making – the decision to allow fans.

“I think that’s really the unknown at this point,” Smith said. “We’re working scenarios right now for when it’s safe, when it’s responsible to do so, and of course under the guidance of the public health officials here, we will resume the build with whatever we are presented in terms of fan scenarios for August. Right now everything is in a holding pattern.”

The with-fans possibility appears all but dead and there is, sadly, a third-and-increasingly likely scenario: no PGA at all. Bay Area counties, which were the earliest in the country to order stay-at-home measures, are still “nowhere near” meeting reopening criteria as of Monday.

With Major League Baseball rolling out a proposed schedule keeping teams closer to home and playing without fans, Governor Gavin Newsom reiterated that much will need to happen even for the California teams to play in their stadiums.

From Jeff Passan’s ESPN.com story:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a media conference Monday that he had spoken to the commissioner as well. "He said, 'We won't do anything that's not consistent with state guidelines,'" Newsom said. "We certainly look forward to Major League Baseball and all sports resuming, but again, the question is when. And that will be determined on the basis of public health and public safety and the spread of this virus."

In contrast to baseball, the PGA Championship would be attempting to bring players from all over the world 15 weeks from now.

Golf Values Reset: Rekindling The Early Days Of "Play It As It Lies"

With new rules and regulations during the COVID-19, golfers are flocking to courses and based on social media, enjoying their golf more than ever. Even with all sorts of safety precautions stripping away elements thought essential to enjoyment of the game, it turns out the mere privilege of being outside, getting exercise and hitting the ball has brought priorities into focus.

Play it as it lies has been under fire some time. Golfers get to touch their ball too much, particularly on the greens. (Though magically, for a short, dark period in the early 2000s would mysteriously leave it down to provide a backstop for competitors even when playing for millions of dollars. Go figure.)

There are also drops, excuses to touch the ball to gauge how it lies or if it’s scuffed too much. And then there is all of that dabbing, touching, extricating and other surgery allowed in the immediate surrounds of the ball. The effect puts a few dents in play it as it lies.

Worse, massive amounts of capital and man hours are expended annually to prevent golfers from having to find a lie that might set in motion a series of ” tragic” events like sixes and sevens. Land has been rearranged to flatten stances, bunker floors have been remodeled to allow for an ideal stance. Even in hazards, where technically no one should not be entitled to any coddling, golfers demand perfection and today’s talented superintendents deliver.

But with the COVID-19 precautions such as unraked bunkers and flagsticks in holes, golfers are reporting normal eastern sunrises and western sunsets despite these pandemic-related “concessions”. Many are enjoying the stripped-down game even more.

So while we’re hiding rakes and treating flagsticks like they are radioactive, why not pretend golf balls are potential virus carriers and return to the days of leaving them down unless absolutely necessary. The backstoppers should be thrilled. The realization that a bad lie now and then is a small price to pay for the privilege of playing in these times of quarantining. We might even be able to shed a few ounces of bloated entitlement bred by exposure to mostly pristine playing opportunities?

While doing some research I popped open Scotland’s Gift-Golf and C.B. Macdonald explained in Chapter I (Introduction to St Andrews) how the early golf he played there as a young visitor was centered around a “code of honor” where “the player must play the ball as it lay.” He ended the first chapter with this longing for American golf to capture the essence of the primal game that hooked him:

So strong was the influence of my associations with St. Andrews that for many years touching the ball in play without penalty was anathema to me, a kind of sacrilegious profanity. The impression of the true old game of golf is indescribable. It was like the dawn or the twilight of a brilliant day. It can only be felt. The charm, the fascination of it all, cannot be conveyed in words.

Would that I could hand on unimpaired the great game as it was my good fortune to know it. The iconoclast and the Bolshevik, knowing nothing of golfing law or golfing sin, may mar its spirit, but I have faith in its supremacy.

Based on the early reactions I’ve heard about unraked bunkers and slower, less refined maintenance, the spirit, the “charm” and “the fascination of it all” is being “felt” again. Maybe with less touching of the ball, more acceptance of playing it as you found it, and scorecards taking on a little less importance, perhaps we can see a return of the primal St Andrews sensations that so enamored Macdonald.

England Can Resume Golf With Household Members, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland Cannot

Elliott Heath reports on the UK Prime Minister’s lifting of some restrictions on recreation, with only England allowing golfers to return as long as they are playing with a household member. The plan begins Wednesday and apparently caught many by surprise.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s quote in Heath’s Golf Monthly report is going to confuse golfers.

“From this Wednesday, we want to encourage people to take more and even unlimited amounts of outdoor exercise,” UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

“You can sit in the sun in your local park, you can drive to other destinations, you can even play sports but only with members of your own household.”

Governments continue to try ease restrictions and golf seems to be caught in the middle, as Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales will not be part of this “unlimited exercise” restriction lift due to continued lockdown orders.

The R&A’s statement and guidelines page, included this:

As a sport we must work together to resume play responsibly as and when the relevant Government determines it is safe to do so. We must ensure that the safety and well being of everyone involved from golfers, to club staff and greenkeepers is maintained at all times. Golf clubs and golfers have observed the lockdown very well and must keep it up and act responsibly as play resumes.

Report: PGA Tour "On Track" For June 11 Restart

GolfChannel.com’s Rex Hoggard, citing a memo to players saying the PGA Tour is “on track” for a June 11-14 restart week at the Charles Schwab Challenge, says we can expect to learn details this week about how it will all work.

He reports that the “Health and Safety” plan will center around multiple tests and include things like no locker room, spacing-minded setup of operations and even making caddies optional. Though as he noted in the Golf Central report below, that plan still seems to be a bone of contention. Hoggard also cites one member of the players advisory council as saying he is "95% sure” the event will go forward.

PGA Tour Commissioner has said testing across the country needs to be “widespread” to not take away from the “critical need” currently still experienced.

As UFC dealt with positive tests this week, the LA Times’s Arash Markazi notes that dealing with the inevitable positive tests results opens up even more questions for sports leagues. In golf, the independent contractor status of players adds other wrinkles, particularly if the player is asymptomatic but is also precluded from playing in a battle to retain tour status.

Ultimately, those are minor concerns in the grand scheme of our current COVID-19 world.

Increasingly, I sense the greatest fear with the PGA Tour’s fan-free return is not with a virus spread or lack of safety planning, but instead, optics. Given models showing huge daily death tolls and continued strain on front line response efforts in a variety of locations, what will it looks like if players competing, perhaps whining about flagsticks or bunker lies, or blaming bad room service for their play?

How those optics are gauged is beyond my pay grade and may not be something that can be tracked. But given all other golf organizations either suspending or cancelling events well beyond mid-June, the risk to both the Tour and the sport’s reputation is great if the return is seen as too abrupt.

To put it another way, years of goodwill earned with billions raised for charity and professional golfers seen as a certain kind of model citizen, could be put at risk. And for what? To get the FedExCup chase restarted and preserve the wraparound schedule?

Today, May 10th, the desire to play in mid-June seems like a big gamble with a low long-term reward. A month from now? Maybe not. After more people see golf courses as very safe places to be or the markets hosting events are deemed relatively safe, the risk may seem less dangerous.

Anyway, the full Golf Central segment:

“Golf has never felt so much like a freedom.”

Thanks to reader John for this from Bill Pennington NY Times piece on what golf courses are experiencing now that play has been reopened in all fifty states.

This:

There are more than 16,000 golf courses in America and only a quarter are private clubs. With schools padlocked, fitness centers closed and many parks and playgrounds off limits, golf — with social distancing restrictions — has become a rare outdoor respite that combines exercise, companionship, competition and space.

“With so many things you can’t do right now and so few things you can do,” Withington said, “golf has never felt so much like a freedom.”

Moreover, golf course operators nationwide said they are seeing something new in their client behaviors and demographics: entire families, cooped up at home, are arriving at the first tee to play together; sales of discounted youth golf passes are exploding; and more golfers are walking the course because usually only family members can share a cart.

“I’m also seeing a lot of people who haven’t played golf in a while,” said Scott Krieger, the head pro and general manager at Broadmoor Golf Course in Portland, Ore. “And more fathers and sons, fathers and daughters and husbands and wives, too.”

Memorial Tournament Direct Shares What A Post-COVID-19 PGA Tour Spectator-Attended Event Will Look Like

If the Memorial Tournament Presented by Nationwide takes place in July, 2020, it would be the second currently scheduled golf tournament in the COVID-19 era to welcome back include spectators (the John Deere Classic is scheduled to be the first).

Appearing on the Virtual Sports Report, the Memorial’s Dan Sullivan previewed things like no grandstands, volunteers in tournament-branded face coverings and more limited television coverage. Sean Zak at Golf.com documented all of the thoughts, but this is of particular note as we try to envision tournament operations of the future.

Among the biggest changes expected at the Memorial is tracking the whereabouts of fans. While there will be fewer spectators allowed on tournament grounds — ticket sales have purposefully been slowed to keep from over-populating — each spectator badge (and the badges of tournament staff/volunteers) will have within it an RFID tag. “At any time we can know, around the golf course, how many people are collecting in a certain area,” Sullivan said.

The full interview:

Pepperdine's Sahith Theegala Takes The Haskins, Furman's Natalie Srinivasan Wins The Annika As College Golf's Top Golfers

In a bittersweet year with NCAA golfers were stripped of the chance to complete their season, the sight of Player-of-the-year winners from Pepperdine and Furman at least injected 2020 a nice memory. Both schools have under 4000 undergraduates.

The Haskins to best male golfer went to Pepperdine’s Sahith Theegala, while Furman's Natalie Srinivasan took the Annika given to the top female golfer.

As a Pepperdine alum, I can’t speak to how incredible a moment this is for the school’s golf program and southern California junior golf to have produced golf’s equivalent of a Heisman winner. Also, a huge tip o’ the cap to Pepperdine Coach Michael Beard for not ignoring Theegala’s potential despite his less-than-orthodox swing.

Oh, and most impressive of all? Theegala wins the award as a senior after redshirting the year prior to heal an injured wrist. Not Hogan or Zaharias level comebacks, but mighty impressive nonetheless.

From Brentley Romine’s GolfChannel.com story:

Despite the competition year being shortened due to the pandemic, Theegala and Srinivasan, both seniors, built strong resumes and finished the year ranked atop the Golfstat rankings. Theegala won twice and posted four other top-6 finishes for the top-ranked Waves. Srinivasan captured three events and ended her season with a runner-up finish at the prestigious Darius Rucker Intercollegiate.

Here is Theegala receiving the award on Golf Central:

Turner Sells Out Ad Space For The Match, And Then Some

As unemployment skyrockets and the world economy continues a virtual halt, it’s curious to see how much corporate support there is for The Match 2, both in sponsorship and in ad sales. While the below story notes the various sponsors and buyers were locked in a month ago, the support has remained in part because of the match shifting to a charity effort.

Adweek’s Kelsey Sutton reports on the overwhelming financial outlay that is going to the $10 million charitable payout when Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning tee up May 24th at The Medalist.

Turner Sports is hopeful The Match will attract lots of eyeballs, and so are its advertising partners. The broadcaster is using the partially remote production to feature some unique on-air sponsorship opportunities.

Cisco has signed on as a content integration partner, and Turner Sports will use the videoconferencing application Webex to bring remote guests to the screen during the telecast, said Will Funk, Turner Sports’ evp, sports partnerships and branded content. DraftKings, another content integration partner, will provide betting odds on challenges and stunts on different holes throughout the course, all of which feature a charitable payout.

Royal And Ancient Captain To Repeat Term, First Since

In another sign of the (first world) times, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews will have Clive Edginton continue as captain for another year. This makes him the first to do so since John Murray Belshes in 1835-36.

I know you all know about Murray Belshes, but first, for Immediate Publication.

THE ROYAL AND ANCIENT GOLF CLUB ANNOUNCES CLIVE EDGINTON WILL CONTINUE AS CAPTAIN FOR 2020/21

6 May 2020, St Andrews, Scotland: The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews has announced that Clive Edginton will continue as Captain for 2020/21.  

Mr Edginton took office last September as Captain for 2019/20 but due to the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic the Past Captains of the Club have nominated Mr Edginton to continue as Captain for another year from September 2020.

This is only the second occasion since the Club was founded in 1754 that a Captain has served two successive terms. The first was Major John Murray Belshes, who held the position in 1835 and 1836.

Mr Edginton said, “It is an honour to be Captain of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club and I feel very privileged to be asked to continue in the role. This is a difficult time for all of us in the midst of this pandemic but I am happy that I can continue to serve the Club as we look positively to the future.” 

Born in Walton-on-Thames, Mr Edginton was educated at Malvern College and Oxford University, graduating in 1973 with a degree in law and a Blue for golf.  After a successful business career in the City of London, latterly as Chief Executive and then Chairman of Tindall Riley, a specialist insurance management company, he retired in 2014.  He has since been a non-executive director and is now a consultant to the Medical Defence Union.

Mr Edginton became a member of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club in 1997.  He served on the Rules of Golf Committee from 2000 to 2004 and was its Deputy Chairman from 2002 to 2004. He was Chairman of the Amateur Status Committee from 2007 to 2011 during which time The R&A and the USGA produced the first unified Amateur Status Code.  He was elected to the General Committee of the Club in 2014 and became Chairman of the General Committee and of the R&A’s principal companies from September 2015 until September 2018.

Mr Edginton’s home club is St George’s Hill in Weybridge, Surrey where he became a member at the age of eight.  He has served St George’s Hill as Committee Member, Captain, Director and Trustee.  He has been Club Champion on four occasions and is a nine-time winner of the club’s scratch Gold Medal.  At various times he has also been Captain of the South Eastern Junior Golfing Society, the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society, the Moles Golfing Society and the Old Malvernian Golfing Society, for whom he played more than 100 matches in the Halford Hewitt.

Aged 68, Mr Edginton currently plays to a handicap of eight. He is married to Debbie, who is a member of both St George’s Hill and The St Rule Club.

Now about Belshes.

Check out Scott Macpherson’s item for Links on the royal (golf) title and its history. Captain B, an 1800’s man who looked like, well, every other 1800s elite type, put the stamp on a very important application back in those roaring 1830s.

With the union of the Scottish and English crowns in 1603, golf moved south; but when the House of Stuart fell 100 years later, so did golf’s royal link. It wasn’t restored until Lord Kinnaird, captain of the Perth Golfing Society from 1832 to 1834, addressed King William IV during a trip to London. Kinnaird asked His Majesty if he would become patron of the Society, and if the club might call itself The Royal Perth Golfing Society. When the King agreed to both requests, the royal rush was on.

Perth!

William IV granted the royal title to only one other golf club, but it was a big one—the Society of St. Andrews Golfers. Major John Murray Belshes put forward the application in 1834, and His Majesty was happy to have the club restyle itself The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. But it took some gentle persuasion before he would agree to become its patron, acquiescing once it was pointed out that one of his many titles was Duke of St. Andrews.

There you go, he’s the man who got Royal in the title of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. Definitely worth a second year.

Wait, so who tacked on the “and Ancient?”

Hey, I have something to do tomorrow! Macpherson here I come!**

**He offers this:”

“They added the ‘ancient’ when devising the new club name was to do with the fact the club was 70 years older than the Royal Perth Golfing Society, who had a year earlier in 1833 been granted the royal title. The wanted to differentiate themselves and not just be a royal club, but make it very clear they were the senior club. John M Belches led the charge for the royal title for the St Andrews club by writing to the King etc, despite (as many of them were) also being a member of the, now Royal, Perth club. It was oneupsmanship on a grand scale. So the club went from the St Andrews Society to the R&A GC of St Andrews. There was no ‘The Royal Golf Club of St Andrews'.”