PGA Tour’s first event since March will mark the death of George Floyd at 8.46am and sees the world’s top three grouped together for the first two rounds In the most optimistic of outlooks, a journey which begins with Ryan Palmer cracking a tee shot at the Colonial Country Club in Forth Worth, Texas, will conclude with the crowning of a Masters champion in front of adoring galleries at Augusta National on 15 November. So much in between – including the Ryder Cup – remains unclear as golf steps forward for its new beginning. To its credit, the PGA Tour has already confounded widespread scepticism by reaching this point of tournament return. Golf is back.Ninety-one days will have passed between...
God forbid that anyone should have to wait another couple of months before swinging a club in public, well that seems to be the viewStephen Moore appeared on the Today Programme on Tuesday morning to talk about the US protests against the lockdown. Moore, who is a member of Donald Trump’s economic recovery taskforce, made headlines recently with his radioactively obnoxious opinion that the people out complaining about physical distancing are modern-day equivalents of Rosa Parks, a comparison that makes you wonder whether earplugs ought not to be considered an essential bit of PPE.“People are protesting against their basic civil liberties and constitutional rights,” he told the BBC. “People in many states feel politicians are trampling on those rights.” It...
Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka are among those to distance themselves from the new tour, but too much time and money has been invested for PGL to turn back nowCoronavirus and its associated troubles is not the only matter to have caused Jay Monahan recent strain. As golf, like all other sports, now seeks to navigate a path towards resumption there will inevitably be a sense that additional challenges may disappear. They may actually multiply. Monahan, in his role as the PGA Tour’s commissioner, encountered 2020 turmoil even before the pandemic afforded the world a new normal.The Premier Golf League dominated discussion in the early part of this year, even though sceptics insist this is a scheme based in dreamland....
Game is in unique position to lay down a marker in a sporting world which will be reshaped after fighting Covid-19The release of a revised majors schedule arrived like a beacon of light. One isn’t scraping barrels of insensitivity to point out that thoughts of the return of sport, not just exclusively at its elite level, get many people smiling during these grim and uncertain times. Disappointment that there will be no Open Championship in 2020 was offset by the thought of a US PGA Championship in August, a September US Open, the Ryder Cup going ahead as scheduled and an utterly novel November Masters. Related: Golf's hiatus offers reminder of what the Open was before money talked | Ewan...
As Woods prepares to host the Genesis Invitational, his response to Premier League Golf’s plans faces intense scrutinyThis week’s dreamy narrative is perfectly understandable. Should Tiger Woods, back in his native southern California, secure PGA Tour win No 83 the golf world may run out of Kleenex. Woods has a strangely patchy record at what is now the Genesis Invitational but that doesn’t matter for now; this was the first PGA Tour event he played in, as a 16-year-old in 1992. Earlier, he would visit Riviera Country Club to watch professionals he was merely hoping to emulate.This week provides a wonderful paradox where Woods is concerned. Media duties included tales of a bygone age. There was one encounter between Tiger...