Golf is back, but the fans aren't and the silence around the game speaks volumes.
The ups and downs of golf without fans
The PGA Tour is back in action this week in Texas with the Charles Schwab Challenge. It’s the first major non-combat sport to resume in the U.S. and it’s giving us a look at what sports will be like in the near future.
The lack of fans on the course means no one is obnoxiously yelling “get in the hole!” on every shot, but it also means that the usually quiet sport of golf is somehow even quieter. CBS is filling some of the silence by putting microphones on players, which led to this fantastic moment with Jon Rahm.
While increased access to the players can be a partial replacement for the usual ambiance, there are still moments where the fans are sorely missed. Just look at what happened when Sung Kang made a hole-in-one on the 162-yard 13th.
Normally you’d expect an eruption from the fans gathered around the green that could be heard by players and fans all over the course. Instead you get the announcer saying in a semi-excited tone, “It’s a one for Kang!” and then transitioning without skipping a beat into his fun fact about how Kang “played a lot of golf here with Danny Lee.”
The subdued reaction from the players is also noteworthy. You can hear one person yell when the ball drops but it doesn’t look like there was much of a celebration on the tee box. It could just be because Kang and his playing partners Brendon Todd and Tyler Duncan aren’t too friendly, or maybe it’s that they have no crowd to feed off of and pump them up. Either way, expect to see a lot more scenes like that until people are allowed to gather en masse again.
You can’t do that
Boxing is back in Las Vegas after a long layoff and at least one fighter looks like he might have forgotten the rules while he was away.
Dominican featherweight Yenifel Vicente was disqualified from his fight against Vegas native Jessie Magdaleno in the 10th round after hitting Magdaleno in the crotch not once, not twice, but three times.
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