These Guys Are Positive: PGA Tour Announces First-Ever All-COVID-19 Grouping

There’s a headline I wouldn’t have seen coming. Last week. But the “Return to Golf” marches on with regular adjustments.

Quick recap: the PGA Tour issued 36 pages of guidelines for the “Return to Golf” in mid-May and here’s how they initially planned to handle a player testing positive for COVID-19:

After five weeks and several positives, the window has closed to 10 days of quarantine and now less if you test negative twice (the Cam Champ clause).

On the eve of the first-and-hopefully-last Workday Charity Open at Muirfield Village, a forklift was called in to move the goal posts again.

The PGA Tour announced no total test results for player and caddies this week as they also did not do last Wednesday. But this “update” revealing that three of the players who tested positive are still doing so, but feel fine so therefore, we have, a historic first: a coronavirus pairing.

PGA TOUR Statement – Health & Safety Plan Updates

July 8, 2020

Protocols for positive/symptomatic cases

At the inception of the PGA TOUR Health and Safety Plan, the TOUR’s policy for all positive test results for players and caddies required a minimum 10-day self-isolation period, based on the Centers for Disease Control’s time-based protocols.

It was “up to 14” in the plan (above) but continue…

On July 1, the TOUR transitioned to a test-based model for asymptomatic cases.  Therefore, in accordance with CDC guidelines, a player or caddie who tests positive for COVID-19 but has not had any symptoms may return to competition if he returns two negative tests results, a minimum of 24 hours apart. 

Ok, testing’s not perfect, Cameron Champ got a raw deal, we’re working with you…

For clarity regarding players and caddies who tested positive for COVID-19 and were symptomatic – in accordance with CDC “Return to Work” guidelines and in consultation with the PGA TOUR Medical Advisor and infectious disease experts – cases in which a player or caddie tested positive and continues to test positive, the TOUR follows a symptom-based model, as outlined by the CDC, allowing for him to return to competition if:

• At least three days (72 hours) have passed since recovery, which is defined as resolution of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and improvement in respiratory symptoms (e.g., cough, shortness of breath); and,

• At least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared.

Lift that post…

The TOUR’s medical advisors and the CDC have indicated that PCR tests have shown a possibility of detecting viral RNA even after the infectious virus is no longer present. This would potentially become a persistent positive test result, despite the individual not being contagious.

Out of an abundance of caution, however, any player or caddie who meets the above criteria but continues to return a positive COVID-19 test will either compete as a single in competition or be grouped with players under the same situation, and he will also have no access to indoor facilities on site.

Face covering? Maybe? We’ll see…unless cameras are forbidden from showing…

At this week’s Workday Charity Open, Dylan Frittelli, Denny McCarthy and Nick Watney will follow the symptom-based model, as they have continued to return positive tests but meet the CDC guidelines for Return to Work. The three will play together in rounds one and two.

For more information on the CDC guidelines referenced above, visit: 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/disposition-in-home-patients.html

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/strategy-discontinue-isolation.html

The CDC guidelines, which are now being modified at President Donald Trump’s urging, make a big point on the two negative tests notion.

So the first ever all-COVID-19 positive trio will tee off together, with no word yet on their caddie situation or other precautions.

In an early evening call convened with preferred outlets, the PGA Tour’s advisor explained the basis of this shift in policy.

From Bob Harig’s ESPN.com story:

"In the beginning stage of the illness, that virus is assumed to be active virus that can cause infection, can be contagious," said Dr. Tom Hospel, the PGA Tour's medical adviser. "As time passes and as symptoms resolve and the patient or individual doesn't have any fever and 10 days have passed, at that point the thought and theory is that this virus, this particle that's being detected in the [nasal] swab is no longer active or contagious or can potentially cause ongoing infection.

"What we have learned along the way is that in some instances, individuals can continue to test positive for weeks if not months beyond when their illness started, and the thought is that those individuals are no longer contagious, but you're picking up dead virus."

The thought and theory.

Play away, gentlemen.

Rackham Update: Detroit's Ross Muni Still Going

Longtime readers know the plight of Detroit’s Donald Ross-designed muni, Rackham, has been watched since 2006 when there were signs the city might close it. The course was subsequently sold and last year we learned of this amazing woman trying to ensure its future as an important big city, affordable public course.

So it was great to see Golf.com’s Sean Zak using the website’s Muni Monday as an excuse to visit the place and highlight its amazing history with Joe Louis and in Detroit golf.

Several Elite Clubs And Pro Tournament Hosts Score Significant PPP Funds

Outside The Cut highlighted top clubs and resorts taking significant workforce employment funds.

In recent days there has been national scrutiny over who received what, including some potential conflicts of interest as noted here by CNBC. In the golf sector, Outside the Cut Tweeted a list of the top golf operations securing SBA loans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Besides several hosts of recent PGA Tour events (Colonial, Harbour Town) or upcoming events (Muirfield Village Golf Club), there is Riviera Country Club securing funds between $2-5 million earmarked to help “businesses keep their workforce employed during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.”

The club is home to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who disclosed his membership there and at Sebonack on Long Island as part of his Senate confirmation process.

The full PPP list can be accessed here.

Over 1500 golf related businesses applied and received funds over $150,000, with just over half receiving less than $350,000. (Businesses receiving less than $150,000 were not disclosed).

However, at the top end’s $2-5 million level, several names stand out given their small workforces. In California there is Bighorn, Steele Canyon and Riviera, Bay Hill (TBHC) and Grey Oaks CC in Florida, New Jersey’s Fiddler’s Elbow, Nevada’s Edgewood Tahoe and Horshoe Bay in Texas.

Muirfield Village, home to the next two weeks of PGA Tour golf, was part of a Columbus Dispatch story on the loans.

ESPN.com: 2020 Ryder Cup Postponement To Become Official

One can only imagine the stories they’ll be able to tell about what went on behind closed doors in the 2020 Ryder Cup discussions.

The PGA Tour’s first day back after the hiatus was dominated by Ryder Cup questions.

Almost three weeks ago, the Guardian said we’d soon learn about the fate the event slated for the end of September.

A majority of the readers here thought the event should be postponed but a surprising number were open to some option this year with limited or no fan access.

As has been well documented, players do not feel it’s a Ryder Cup without fans, led by the top two players in the world.

The European Tour has not sounded excited at all about the business prospects of this notion and even Captain Padraig Harrington came around on this front. But others saw the split with players potentially causing unnecessary disharmony.

The PGA Tour does not want to give up its 2021 Presidents Cup date at Quail Hollow and even tried to poll players acting like budging was not an option..

The PGA of America has to manage the above’s needs plus those of media partners NBC/Golf Channel, Sky and host site Whistling Straits.

And suddenly, managing difficult bank clients all looks like child’s play to PGA CEO Seth Waugh!

ESPN.com’s Bob Harig says the decision has been made, the accountants appeased and the 2020 Ryder Cup will be pushed back a year.

"There will not be a Ryder Cup this year," the source said. "The Ryder Cup will go to 2021, the Presidents Cup to 2022, and then they will alternate from there."

That Escalated Quickly, Files: Brooks Tweets At Bryson, Layers To Peel

Obviously, there is a reference here to Bryson DeChambeau’s annoyance that a cameraman trained a CBS lens on him as he was contending for the Rocket Mortgage.

The second inference takes things up a notch. Or four hundred given Brooks is only a mildly passive-aggressive based on past social media feuds.

pic.twitter.com/DTjuc48hFp

— Brooks Koepka (@BKoepka) July 7, 2020

Women's British Open At Royal Troon A Go, Will Include A "Bio Secure Zone"

The R&A has confirmed plans to move ahead with the Women’s British Open in Scotland (now under their control but curiously still not subjected to The Open branding). From this wire story, it sounds like a very strict zone is being created to make this happen in late August, including all staying in one hotel.

As part of COVID-19 safety protocols, the Championship will create a "bio secure zone," and allow a reduced number of people who are essential to the operation including: players, caddies, officials, and staging staff.

To be allowed on-site, a negative COVID-19 test from an authorised testing centre must be returned, and in addition to limited movements between the golf course and the hotel, all players and staff will be subject to further tests and temperature checks "to maintain the integrity of the zone and the health of those within it."

The preceding week’s Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open is also forging ahead at the Renaissance Club in East Lothian. Players have have been briefed are already bracing for very limited movements beyond playing the tournament.

I sure will be at @LadiesScottish! Love LOVE golf in the UK! So excited! Just a bit gutted we will be quarantined so won’t have time to play North Berwick, Elie, Archerfield, or others. https://t.co/OPnCU1D6N2

— Christina Kim (@TheChristinaKim) July 7, 2020

USGA Acquires Landmark Schickler Photo Collection

North Berwick from the Howard Schickler Photography Collection

Judging by what’s shown at USGA.org and what’s hinted at as part of the Howard Schickler Photography Collection, the USGA has made an incredible acquisition for golf.

Danny Vohden highlights some of the collection’s strengths, with a nice sampling of shots embedded atop the article.

The collection contains more than 1,000 high-quality, historically and artistically important golf images from the 19th and early 20th century. Many photographs feature top American and British golfers, both men and women, from the mid-1800s to the 1970s. The collection was amassed over decades by collector Howard Schickler, sourced from the collections of some of the game’s most influential figures, including the personal collections of Old Tom Morris and F.G. Tait, the Auchterlonie and the Foulis families, the estate of Billy Burke and the collections of Ed Dudley and Bernard Darwin. 

Schickler’s love of golf began when he started playing the game at age 13 in New York City. As a longtime curator and dealer of fine art photography, Schickler brings a unique perspective to this collection. 

“I have been mostly interested in the human story in all the collections I have personally built,” said Schickler. “The collection in many ways tells the story, and to the extent important photographs are dispersed in the marketplace, a cohesive story may be permanently lost. I tried to bring stability and credibility to the collecting part by assisting other collectors, historians and auctions… and it made the collection that I was building that much more worthy to stand the test of time.”  

Shack Show: Bryson's Unsettling Style, The Need To Save Imaginative Golf

On the latest Shack Show I take a few unmistakable forces in golf convering this week to highlight the issues surrounding Bryson DeChambeau’s use of power and the dreary lack of imagination in presenting two tournaments at Muirfield Village. And producer Tim Parotchka, big fan of the distance game then joins me to discuss the joys of the power game (that he passed up watching).

The Apple Podcast link.

And the iHeart embed option below, or subscription page here:

Bryson Continues To Groan About TV Camera Coverage: "It’s just obsessive."

Bryson on "nothing burger" incident with cameraman

"People are going to make a big deal out of nothing, that's all it is. A nothing burger deal" pic.twitter.com/FP7mYZdQjC

— LKD (@LukeKerrDineen) July 6, 2020

So much for someone whispering in his ear, remember those cameras show you and the logos people pay you to exhibit.

Following Saturday’s bizarro Bryson DeChambeau beef with a cameraman filming the action as he’s obligated to do, the 2020 Rocket Mortgage champion took to Twitch following his Sunday win to answer questions. He continued to express his issue with television coverage invading his space, privacy, or something in that realm.

Thankfully for us geezers, Luke Kerr-Dineen posted the Twitch video (embedded above) and Christopher Powers transcribed DeChambeau’s doubling down on his view that cameramen are only suppose to shoot at select times and mind-read the rest of the time.

“I just felt like a minute long for videoing me was kind of a little weird, but we talked it out and it was all great, no issues whatsoever. So, I appreciate what they do, appreciate everybody that works hard out here to provide great entertainment.”

By the sound of it, he still didn’t quite get what irked some folks who were critical of his comments, but again, the news cycle moves quickly. Most of the discussion topics on Monday morning have revolved around DeChambeau’s game.

It doesn’t move as quickly when you double and triple down, however, which is exactly what DeChambeau did during a Twitch stream on Sunday night.

“The guy was videoing me for a minute after a shot,” DeChambeau said, “like a full minute. That’s just, it’s just obsessive. It’s not the cameraman, it’s nobody’s fault, there’s just got to be a little bit of respect, that’s all.”

I reached out to CBS to see if they had any comment on the matter, or if the cameraman had been disciplined for doing his job.

They respectfully declined comment.

"Of the many positive things he’s accomplished for the good of Scottish golf over the years, Paul Lawrie’s latest venture has to be the best of the lot. "

Move Paul Lawrie high up the list of pros who have stepped up during the COVID-19 pandemic to help out the sport’s aspiring players.

As Martin Dempster writes, the 1999 Open Champion may be doing his best work yet for Scotland’s up and coming players, with some tremendous courses stepping in to assist as well: Royal Dornoch, Carnoustie and St Andrews where the New and Jubilee courses will be used. As will Devenick Course at Lawrie’s golf center (for a Par 3 Championship).

Six 36-hole events on the Tartan Pro Tour will offer a place for male and female pros to compete while travel restrictions and cancelled events reduce opportunities in the Home of Golf.

Dempster writes:

Scottish golf owes another debt to one of its favourite sons.

Of the many positive things he’s accomplished for the good of Scottish golf over the years, Paul Lawrie’s latest venture has to be the best of the lot.

Put it this way, the new Tartan Pro Tour, a series of six 36-hole events around the country in August and September, could make the difference between a Scottish-based pro going on to blossom in the game as opposed to being lost to the sport forever.

Yale AD: Course Remains Closed, "Course Landscape Experts" To Be Called In

Well it’s a start, but the (ongoing) sad state of affairs at America’s top collegiate course and most affordable membership option in the area seem likely to be addressed.

Sadly, at Yale Golf Course during the pandemic—one of the few sad stories of neglect—will take time to fix. In such a short season, even the latest news below does not exactly make me optimistic for C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor’s masterful design. But at least the current Athletic Director seems concerned. This is progress.

Thanks to all who forwarded this.

What Might Have Been: The Workday Charity Open Provide A Chance To Try Something Different

Now that spectators have been ruled out for The Memorial, the back-to-back weeks at Muirfield Village will be delineated by contrasting course setups (Rex Hoggard reported on this three weeks ago).

Get ready to hear a lot about Stimpmeter speeds and rough heights. Oh, that’ll lure in the young people.

Also, the field for this week’s Workday Charity Open will consist of 156 compared to 120 for next week’s Memorial. 72-holes of stroke play for both. Scintillating.

The Workday provided an opportunity to inject something fresh onto the schedule while retaining the Memorial’s luster. Remember all the pre-pandemic talk about the need to slip in more variety on the schedule and offer alternatives to 72-holes of stroke play? I know, seems like decades ago.

Here are some options that would undoubtedly have required too many Zoom meetings and players inevitably offering their buzzkilling two cents.

—Reverse the nines. If we’re going to watch the same course for two weeks, why not use the spectator-free situation to use the less-seen, more confined front nine as the incoming set to differentiate the two weeks. This would have also protected The Memorial’s aura. Now, after two weeks of seeing the back nine, it’s likely to grow tiresome for fans.

—54 Holes. The Premier Golf League is proposing to play 54 hole tournaments with 18-hole shotguns the first two rounds. The Workday’s field size precluded the shotgun option, but a tournament shortened by a day and maybe played with a tighter pace policy would have been a solid experiment. It might have encouraged a few more players to play both tournament weeks.

—Stableford scoring. With several world class risk-reward holes at Muirfield Village, the scoring format used at July’s Barracuda Championship, combined with the less severe course setup planned, could have led to more contrast between the weeks.

—10 Club Limit. Imagine the pre-tournament talk: We tweaked some lofts and lies to fill in a mid-iron gap with the help of my partners at (Ricky Bobby/Bryson-style corporate plug goes here). We’d see some shotmaking, some tougher decisions for players who have to create something out of a reduced set of options and we might see creativity rewarded. With less to carry, Tour caddies might even be less surly for a week.

—12-Hole Rounds. With just a bit of creativity, Muirfield Village could have been reconfigured into a 12-hole layout as a salute to alternative round lengths, Prestwick and Jack Nicklaus’s view that the sport would have been better at a dozen holes. One option, screen-grabbed from Google Earth and posted above: holes 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. This would have taken the finishing four holes off of television to preserve some of the Memorial’s cache and conclude the Workday on the courses four most dynamite holes. If Bryson were playing, the last two would have been drivable fours!

—Almost All Of The Above. Let’s just go off the rails for total fun: 12 hole rounds, three days (36 holes total), Stableford scoring, 10-club limit. Let the whining begin!

Open Week To Feature "The Open For The Ages"

Let’s ignore the fan vote component (Rory inevitably opens as the 3-1 favorite!) and instead enjoy the R&A’s fresh approach to pandemic “content”. The Old Course! A tournament! On national TV! Better than most!

For Immediate Release…

THE R&A TO MARK ‘OPEN WEEK’ WITH CELEBRATORY BROADCAST OF ‘THE OPEN FOR THE AGES’

6 July 2020, St Andrews, Scotland: The R&A is inviting golf fans around the world to take part in a very special celebration of golf’s original championship following the cancellation of The Open this year.

‘The Open for The Ages’ will bring together many of golf’s greatest champions for the first time to compete against each other over the Old Course at St Andrews in a compelling and innovative three-hour broadcast production. 

This exclusive edition of The Open features 50 years of archive footage expertly edited and woven together with modern graphics and new commentary to imagine a Championship contested by the legends of the sport including Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Seve Ballesteros, Tom Watson, Sir Nick Faldo and Rory McIlroy.

‘The Open for The Ages’ will culminate in a final round programme that will air on Sunday 19 July when it will be broadcast globally to fans around the world on TV, TheOpen.com and The Open’s social media channels. The broadcast is being supported by HSBC and NTT DATA, both Patrons of The Open.

Anticipation and excitement for the final round programme will build up from Thursday 16 to Saturday 18 July when coverage of the first three rounds of ‘The Open for The Ages’ will be provided by in-play clips, live leaderboards and end of play highlights across The Open’s social media channels.

The winner of ‘The Open for The Ages’ will be determined by a fan vote, which has registered more than 10,000 responses, and a data model developed in partnership with NTT DATA that utilises player career statistics alongside the input by fans to calculate the Champion.

Martin Slumbers, Chief Executive of The R&A, said, “Golf is one of the very few sports where this concept can be created and brought to life. The way in which the sport is filmed allows us a truly unique opportunity to reimagine history and bring together the greatest players from many different eras on a scale which has not been done before, either in golf or in other sports.

“We are all keenly feeling the absence of The Open from the global sporting calendar this year and so we hope that this broadcast will generate real interest and enjoyment for the millions of golf and sports fans who closely follow the Championship every year.”

Laurence Norman, VP Sports Technology at NTT DATA UK, said, “Technology is synonymous with modern sport, helping athletes compete at optimum performance levels. What’s even more exciting is the new emphasis on technology being utilised to enhance fan experiences.

“Building stronger fan engagement through technology is the future of sports, and while it will never replace the thrill of live events, The Open for The Ages demonstrates how technology can keep pushing the boundaries of what it is possible in sports broadcasting."

The R&A’s international TV broadcast partners, including Sky Sports in the UK, NBC Sports and NBC Golf Channel in the United States of America, and TV Asahi in Japan, will televise ‘The Open for The Ages’ to fans all around the world.  It will also be made available via TheOpen.com and The Open’s YouTube and Facebook channels.

Commentators, including Ewen Murray, Nick Dougherty, Butch Harmon and Iona Stephen, will bring the Championship to life using a compelling narrative that will provide a fascinating spectacle at the Home of Golf.

‘The Open for the Ages’ will be supported by a digital and social media campaign featuring ‘in-play’ clips, leaderboards and statistics in the lead up to the final round being played when the outright winner is revealed.

The trailer:

"He won’t often have to hit mid-irons, ever."

From this week’s Golf.com Confidential, caddie and contributor John Wood on Bryson DeChambeau’s game following the Rocket Mortgage Classic win:

John Wood, PGA Tour caddie for Matt Kuchar (@Johnwould): Bryson seems to have broken the code for Bryson. And I think he has transferred what has been done at the long driving competitions for a while now to highly competitive golf. I couldn’t be more impressed. I was watching today and thought how economical this type of game is to practice. You practice drivers, wedges, chips and putting. He won’t often have to hit mid-irons, ever. Maybe a couple a day to par-5s. But for the most part, playing the game like he is playing it, and how courses are allowing him to play it through setup, why would you spend the time on fairway woods and hybrids and long/mid-irons when they will be used so seldom.

Will Gray at GolfChannel.com featured several of DeChambeau’s comments and summed up the whirlwind week at Detroit Golf Club, including this.

To that end, he’s looking to parse every possible advantage in a game where each player starts the week with the same score from the same teeing ground.

“I think the most important thing is that I’ve shown people that there’s another way to do it, and there’s going to be other people trying to come up and do it that way,” DeChambeau said. “For me, I think there are going to be people trying to hit it a little harder, some of them, but at the end of the day, it’s going to take a generation for all this to evolve into something different.”

Buck Reflects On Fox's U.S. Open Run, What Kills Him Not To Have Called

Fox Sports’ Joe Buck penned an uplifting serenade to five years of Fox handling USGA events and namely, the U.S. Open.

While he has fond memories of everything coming together for both parties at Pebble Beach, including a fitting Tap Room finish, only one thing really bugs the broadcaster. Not getting to call a Tiger win, or at least, contending U.S. Open week.

Regarding Tiger: We never got to see THE MAN do his thing. (MC, DNP, DNP, MC, T21 in our five years.) And that kills me.

Buck also offers this about golf on TV.

But I wouldn’t trade our five-year run for anything, because of the people I worked with (starting with our producer, Mark Loomis), what we experienced together, what we learned. Here are some quick lessons: Let the players and caddies talk. Less is more. From the field is better than from the booth. And the Fox Sports production-side innovations will become a big part of TV coverage elsewhere. Drone shots and more ball-tracers already are.

While Fox promised a lot and severely under-delivered for the USGA, they did end up bringing the disruptor role that was promised by pushing others into more usage of tracer, drone and maybe someday, more mic’s in the cup to hear conversations on greens.

I would add their hole graphics, which were the most artistically beautiful and useful when they worked, and their placement of cameras to better give viewers a sense of what the player faced along with the scale and details of tee shots. (The Golf.com gang touched on this and more in this week’s Confidential, point 5).

Buck also deserves credit for adjusting his style and stepping up immediately in big situations when he did not let controversy stop him from calling it as he saw it.