The Charles Schwab Challenge is over. Daniel Berger overcame a loaded leaderboard for his third PGA Tour victory and reminded everyone that he is another of the game’s potential stars.
Led by a media cohort in need of traffic and social media approval, expect the attention to quickly turn from Berger (and the short missed putts by Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa) to the challenges the PGA Tour faces as a traveling caravan.
The return of the game’s greatest tour has been met with skepticism by sizable pockets of the national media, who have questioned the need to play golf in the face of a continuing pandemic.
While there is reason for all of us to be wary of COVID-19, the Tour is right to resume play and move forward with tournaments in South Carolina, Connecticut, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota and Tennessee leading up to the PGA Championship in California August 6-9. Some writers and the social media mob will be ready to pounce when the inevitable positive test results comes (make no mistake, they are coming).
Let me tell you how the Tour is going to react to positive tests: it’s going to continue playing.
That’s not due to indifference to human life or greed, despite what you may hear.
The Tour will play through positive tests for a much simpler reason: it has to.
Unfortunately, the coronavirus isn’t going away and there is no reasonable expectation that a vaccine will be ready within the next 12 months. According to a Wall Street Journal op-ed, you have a better chance of dying in a car accident on your way to work than you do of COVID-19, if you are under the age of 65, so the Tour’s membership doesn’t face mortal danger.
The risks for some tournament officials and volunteers will be higher.
Players who have underlying conditions or live with loved ones who do will be forced to make difficult (bordering on unfair) decisions. That’s not a position any of us want to be in, but it’s unfortunately a situation the virus has forced millions of people across the globe into.
While we love golf as a form of entertainment, it’s a job for the guys on the PGA Tour and, like the rest of us, they have to go back to work.
The first event went off without a hitch, highlighted by a great leaderboard and a compelling weekend of golf, but there will be bumps in the road. Players, caddies and officials are going to test positive.
But this is the new “normal” for all of us, and the show must go on, with all reasonable precautions being taken.
