Golfing News & Blog Articles

Tony Paul previews this week’s PGA Tour return to the Motor City for the Rocket Mortgage Classic and finds a negative in the thing I’ve heard the most positive comments about: fan free events devoid of derelicts wailing baba booey.

For starters, there will be no fans, no baba booeys, no elevated blood-alcohol levels. That threatens to suck some of the fun out of the tournament.

And we don't exactly know when there will be another, given the Red Wings and Pistons are done, while the Tigers are supposed to start the season in late July — though COVID-19 has a strange way of keeping everyone from making plans in stone these days.

The tournament lost several multiple players on Monday who hadcommitted, with the PGA Tour announcing Harris English as the fifth player to test positive for COVID-19. He has withdrawn and will spend ten days in quarantine. His Whoop band apparently hasn’t arrived in the mail yet as the boilerplate statement only included the shameless homage to the Ministry of Sawgrass almost assuredly not uttered by English:

PGA TOUR COVID-19 Update - June 29, 2020

 As part of the PGA TOUR’s pre-tournament screening process this week at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, PGA TOUR player Harris English tested positive for COVID-19 and has been withdrawn from the event. 

Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand helps fill out the shocking exit from golf by Fox Sports with several insights into the deal announced Monday, including this about when discussions started.

Two months ago, after the USGA decided to postpone the U.S. Open to September, Fox Sports execs Eric Shanks and Larry Jones reached out to Pete Bevacqua and Jon Miller at NBC Sports to see if their network -- which owns Golf Channel -- would be willing to carry some of this year’s event. Fox’s fall schedule is jam-packed, and it saw NBC as a potential lifeline to help it carry and sell one of golf’s four majors. Early in the discussions, it became clear that NBC wanted a bigger piece of the USGA package, and Fox wanted out.

Write down time!

Ourand also noted the ultimate problem dooming the Fox-USGA partnership had nothing to do with the production side of the presentation after the first year struggles:

Golf never fit Fox: Fox gets a bad rap for its golf production. The network’s performance at last year’s U.S. Open in Pebble Beach was praised widely. But golf never fit into Fox’s plans. The Fox execs that originally cut this deal -- Chase Carey and Randy Freer -- left the company soon afterwards, and nobody was left to champion the sport. Fox never was close to adding to its golf portfolio; it wasn’t a serious contender for either British Open or PGA Tour rights, which should have been the first sign that it wanted to get out of the USGA deal.

Unfortunate news for the top PGA of America professionals in the U.S. who have seen their annual championship rescheduled and now, cancelled.

Set for Austin in late July, with the top 20 going to the PGA Championship in San Francisco and the top 3 recently announced as U.S. Open exemptions, it’s both a shame and also an eye-opener for August’s championship given the mention of travel restrictions.

The news was emailed to PGA members. Ron Mintz posted the sad news:

The PGA of America announced on Monday that it has canceled the PGA Professional Championship.

1 of 2

“With the health and well-being of our PGA Members, volunteers, rules officials and staff serving as our guiding principles throughout this effort, recent COVID-19 surges in the area and various travel restrictions made our collective pursuit prohibitive.” 2 of 2

Press releases these days are usually so light on details and heavy on the fluff. Not this!

Let’s get to it, For Immediate Release:

USGA Announces New Media Rights Partnership with NBCUniversal  

Move is a win for golf fans  

Wow, even the subhead has layers.

Nick Pietruszkiewicz of ESPN.com was one of the select media members on site at the Travelers Championship and summed up the PGA Tour’s third week back:

• There were positive tests, of players and caddies.

• There was the sudden arrival of the PGA Tour commissioner and the possibility of another shutdown.

• There was one major champion leaving and one playing a round all by himself.

So yes, the stark reality of all this was evident all across the property, every day of the week.

He goes on to detail the whirlwind events and while drawing no conclusions, the new normal outlined in the story sounds like something that will be tough to sustain. And this was all before yet another positive test was announced (more later).

But if things continue at this pace of positive tests, contact trace-based WD’s and daily guideline changes and is juxtaposed against nationwide outbreaks, golf’s importance may pale.

The good news?

AP’s Doug Ferguson reports that Fox Sports has “asked to end” its 12-year USGA contract and, over the last two weeks, a deal was ironed out.

Andrew Marchand of the News Corp-owned New York Post, confirmed the news in a Tweet. An announcement is expected Monday.

From Ferguson’s story, the pandemic appears to have played a role:

One person said NBC would pay for just under half of the rights fee through the rest of the contract.

Two other people said the deal began to take shape this month, especially with the U.S. Open being moved to September during the opening month of the NFL.

One person said Fox was contemplating moving the U.S. Open to FS1, an idea that was rebuffed by Mike Davis, the CEO of the USGA. That led to deeper conversations about the contract and how it could be resolved.

I thoroughly enjoyed this fourteen-minute Oak Hill restoration video and narrated by Rich Lerner. It gets downright emotional at a point when almost all of Donald Ross’s original Postage Stamp 15th is restored.

Bradley Klein kindly called the asinine Fazio-addition “ridiculous” in previewing the 2013 PGA, and if you feel confident in your digestion system, you should get one last look at it in that story. It really is one of the great architectural acts of vandalism.

Mericfully, the club and architect Andrew Green have brought back the original, minus the right bunker included in Ross’ original plan. The finished product looks like it’ll (re)join the list of tournament golf’s iconic short par-3s when the club hosts the 2023 PGA Championship and, as announced last week, the 2027 U.S. Amateur.

The video:

The best news from Saturday’s Travelers Championship came when Cameron Champ revealed he’s tested negative for COVID-19 three times since Tuesday’s positive test and can return home.

Also, the first player to test positive on the PGA Tour, Nick Watney is feeling ok and tells GolfDigest.com’s Tod Leonard how he awoke last Friday to Whoop readings that made him realize he had a problem.

The bad news is for Champ. Home for him is one of America’s hottest spots and his positive test/WD from the event will inevitably raise concerns about the efficacy of Sanford Health’s testing.

After this week’s much ballyhood adjustments to the PGA Tour’s tournament guidelines related to COVID-19, they made a meaningful adjustment Saturday after both Champ and Watney stepped on grounds potentially with the virus.

Joel Beall reports on the bubble fix that should have been either implemented sooner, or enforced more closely in the form of daily checks instead of, as regulations said, regular checks.

Heading into the Travelers final at TPC River Highlands, Brendon Todd (-18) leads Dustin Johnson (-16) by two.

Now, we know the players eating all those brussel sprouts, listening to their teams and planking for ten minutes at a time explains their distance gains. But whenever folks try to downplay actual distance numbers, we hear how scoring has not budged.

Yet one interesting twist of this “Return to Golf”, with its oversized fields, is the difficulty to protecting par. With bloated fields and warmer weather, we’ve seen softer conditions and easier setups to move players around.

The result: absurd distances (mostly carry) and low scoring. Through 54 at TPC River Highlands and courtesy of the PGA Tour:

Brendon Todd seeks to become the first three-time winner this season

I share this for the country club set of the world who need a story to know that no matter how much bickering, infighting and overall first world wackiness their club might be experiencing, there is always the latest from Bel-Air to top it.

According to TMZ, actress Lori Loughlin and husband/GFore creator/designer Mossimo Giannulli are resigning from Bel-Air as a result of their guilty pleas in the Rick Singer college admissions scandal. Things did not go smoothly.

Friday’s Travelers Championship included the PGA Tour’s first case of a fully confirmed symptomatic player who—bless Denny McCarthy—woke up in the night feeling bad and it seems, got tested, did not get near his fellow PGA Tour peers, and unfortunately must try to recuperate away from home.

We have progress on one front: McCarthy is the first of the three players on the PGA Tour to test positive for COVID-19 and not expose any other players by taking a property tour or having a good physio session while awaiting test results.

The news of McCarthy’s illness also led to Bud Cauley pull out of the Travelers. He played with McCarthy in round one, and at least based on this Joel Beall report from the grounds, felt symptoms but tested negative and nobly stepped aside. Either way, they did the prudent thing for all involved and got a supportive statement from the Commissioner.

For those counting at home: twelve players have WD’d from this week’s Travelers, with seven of those virus related.

Beall also reported on the bizarre sight of Matt Wallace, who played round one with Cauley and McCarthy, to play by himself in round two.

What an incredible of life-saving by Ana Paula Valdes and reporting by the Northwest Arkansas Gazette’s Chip Souza, who documents an incredible story reminiscent of Mary Bea Porter-King saving a drowning boy a 1988 qualifier.

In a nutshell, Valdes, playing in a Women’s All Pro Tour event, saved someone from drowning.

Please hit the link and read it all, but a snippet:

Valdes said she looked out into the lake and saw a person floating face down about 30 feet from shore. Kathy King said the momentum of the cart traveling down the embankment, then slamming into a tree likely caused the woman to be propelled through the front of the golf cart and into the lake.

“I said, ‘Oh my god, that’s the lady,’ ” Valdes said. “So I jumped in the water and started swimming her way. I finally got to her and I tried putting her face up against my chest. I was swimming because I could not touch the bottom. It was deeper than I could stand.

“So I was swimming, trying to keep her face out of the water. I was trying to wake her up because she was unconscious. I kept saying, ‘you’re OK, you’re OK.’ ”

Since the U.S. Open will not be “open” for the first time since 1942 when Ben Hogan won, trying to get a field in place without qualifying was no easy task. And for the most part they appeared to a superb job bringing a diverse group of players to Winged Foot this September.

Brentley Romine has the full list of exemptions, including six time runner-up Phil Mickelson thanks to a World Golf Ranking cutoff date of March 15 when Mickelson was ranked 61st.

There were a couple of surprises near the end, pleasant in the case of the Order of Merit winners and top seven ranked amateurs. Surprising but not shockingly so: the top three from the 2020 PGA Professional Chanmpionship scheduled for late July, and of course, that old standby, Special Exemptions.

-Order of Merit winners from the Asian Tour, Sunshine Tour and PGA Tour Australasia as of July 15.

-Top three finishers in the 2020 PGA Professional Championship.

-Top seven ranked players, not otherwise exempt, in the World Amateur Golf Ranking as of Aug. 19, following the U.S. Amateur.

-Special exemptions.

Back in March when the Players Championship attempted to play on as other sports shut down, most felt it was Rory McIlroy’s suggestion to “shut it down” if a PGA Tour player tested positive that put the gravity of the pandemic into perspective.

After his opening 63 at the Travelers he praised Commissioner Jay Monahan’s uplifting press conference and suggested calls to stop playing following a few positive tests was silly.

From Christopher Powers at GolfDigest.com:

“I think people … you hear one or two positive tests and people are panicking, and I saw a couple of calls to shut the tournament down, which is silly from my point of view,” McIlroy said. “You know, I thought [Monahan] did a really good job explaining. There’s been almost 3,000 tests administered. The percentage of positive tests is under … it’s a quarter of a percent.

“I think as a whole, it’s been going really well. There’s a couple of loose ends that we needed to tidy up, and I think we’ve done that. So yeah, I feel like the mood and the tone of the event was probably lifted by Jay yesterday.”

One update to the Tour guidelines not mentioned in Jay Monahan’s Tuesday press conference involved how Shane Lowry’s possible COVID-19 brush was handled. The Commissioner approved Lowry’s place in the Travelers Championship field—and opening with 66)—but he must wear face covering in scoring and is precluded from entering the TPC River Highlands clubhouse.

From Brentley Romine at GolfChannel.com on Lowry proceeding cautiously:

“I contacted the Tour pretty quickly because I asked them what did they think I should do because I wanted to do the right thing,” said Lowry, who decided to remain in the field and shot 4-under 66 Thursday. “But I don't think I was within enough contact with Ricky over the course of the nine holes we played on Tuesday. … I spoke to [Tour commissioner] Jay [Monahan] yesterday evening here at the club, and he said that I'm good to play, so I'm here to play.”

He may be playing, but Lowry also is having to take extra precautions. He is wearing his mask into the scoring area and he’s restricted from going inside the clubhouse and player dining.

…and in a charming, expedite-the-freak-show exposure of regulatory ineptitude as we wonder how much longer American tournament golf can be played without quarantining half the Tour.

Obviously, it is CLEARLY the better way to play the TPC River Highlands’ 17th by flailing away on a spectator-free course. I mean, who would play to that tiny water-guarded fairway when they could bomb away? Bryson? We need you in this time.

Luke Kerr-Dineen first posted this after DeChambeau’s practice round at the Travelers Championship.

Bryson tried driving the 420-yard 17th green during his practice round today. Reached 198 mph ball speed on the drive (!) and stayed dry, but says it's too risky to try in the tournament.

Was tempted to try and drive a few holes last week, but ended up "playing smart" pic.twitter.com/quAysDTpVb

But he has so far, decided not to do it, Brentley Romine notes here:

Bro-Bumps: Jay Monahan and Rory McIlroy at Last Week’s 2020 RBC Heritage

Kudos to PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan for expediting his wheels up time to be out front on today’s hectic virus news at the Travelers Championship, apparently earlier than expected.

Also, kudos to the PGA Tour media team for axing all press conferences to focus on the matter at hand: more positive tests, more signs pro golfers are not immune to the virus, and more signs the that tour officials hear the bubble bursting.

And that’s about it for the compliment department.

The day that started with the news of Whoop’s for everybody! (Contrary to reports, the wrist devices do not inject you with anti-bodies OR zap you after walking into the Tour’s physio area without having tested negative).

Sunday TV Sports
* NASCAR Race Hub on Fox: 1.433 million viewers.
* NASCAR Talladega rain coverage on Fox: 2.059 million viewers;
* RBC Heritage final round on CBS: 2.044 million viewers;
* Everton-Liverpool on NBC: 997,000 viewers;
* Chelsea-Aston Villa on NBCSN: 612,000 viewers

The PGA Tour’s “Return to Golf” featured pretty solid viewer sizes given the Sunday rain delay, with noticeably strong performances during Golf Channel’s broadcast of PGA Tour Live’s Featured Group coverage.

The numbers were comparable on CBS and well up on Golf Channel compared to the 2019 Travelers played last year in the same slot.

From ShowBuzzDaily:

Note that Golf Channel picked up 1.2 million viewers when CBS signed off in part of the country due to teh delay.

Iain Carter pens this BBC piece on the PGA Tour’s first two weeks.

When filing he was not aware of two more players withdrawing to start Travelers Championship week when he noted the European Tour’s plans this July:

The bubble is leaky. When the European Tour resumes on 22 July stricter regulations will be in place with all participants, officials and media required to stay in designated and, where possible, on site hotels.

No one will be allowed to breach the bubble and, unlike in the United States, the media will also have to undergo testing before being admitted.

The PGA Tour is expected to announce some bubble patches Wednesday at the Travelers. Perhaps PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan may even appear to address the start like other leaders in sports have after a positive test.

Royal Liverpool clubhouse, photo by Geoff Shackelford

In his weekly Daily Mail golf column, Derek Lawrenson says news may be coming soon on Royal Liverpool getting pushed back in The Open rota so that Royal Troon can retain its 2023 centenary date.

The cancellation of the 2020 Open has pushed the schedule back a year, with Royal St George’s hosting in 2021 and The Old Course in 2022.

Lawrenson also tested out what will be the courses new par-17th hole whenever The Open returns (photo below). The new hole was created in addition to other adjustments by Mackenzie and Ebert.

Leaving aside the two new holes showcased when Portrush returned to the rota last year, this will be the first time we've seen a brand new hole on one of the established Open courses in recent memory.

It's good to report, therefore, it's a beauty, with dramatic views over to Hilbre Island, and quite a talking point too in these days of ever-longer courses, given it measures under 130 yards.