It’s possible that if the Ryder Cup is played this September, it will be without fans.
PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh told WFAN Sports Radio this week that the hope is to have fans at the event — still scheduled for Sept. 25-27 at Whistling Straits — but it is, “to be determined, frankly, whether you’d hold it with fans or not.”
It is hard to imagine the event without them, Waugh said, because “the fans are the Ryder Cup.”
Waugh said the PGA of America is talking with tournament partners to make the best decision, including the potential to create a virtual fan experience.
In October, before COVID-19 existed, tickets to this year’s Ryder Cup sold out in under an hour. The event was projected to generate more than $100 million for the region
But the coronavirus pandemic has rattled the professional golf world.
[jwplayer V51WOSCZ-9JtFt04J]
Other top golf events have been postponed, like the PGA Championship (to August), U.S. Open (September) and Masters (November). The British Open, scheduled for July, was canceled.
The PGA Tour already announced it will play the first four events without fans, starting in June.
“If we could pull (the Ryder Cup) off this year, it would be an amazing exclamation point to the year,” Waugh said.
Given the postponement of the 2020 Olympics to 2021, Waugh said hosting the Ryder Cup this year could be a valued outlet for “international patriotism and emotion.”
According to ESPN, world number one Rory McIlroy would rather the event be postponed than played without fans.
“It wouldn’t be a great spectacle, there’d be no atmosphere, so if it came to whether they had to choose between not playing the event or playing it without fans, I would say just delay it a year and play it in 2021,” he said.
McIlroy added that the next Ryder Cup will be in Italy, which was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, so delaying now “gives them an extra year to prepare for the event in 2023.”
[protected-iframe id=”ec6156c62e810181df99b4fcad37b36a-120918734-30999219″ info=”https://omny.fm/shows/the-forward-press-podcast-from-golfweek-com/nathan-grube-what-it-takes-to-put-on-a-pga-tour-ev/embed” width=”100%” height=”180″ frameborder=”0″]
Since the inception of the Ryder Cup in 1927, only two events have caused the golf gathering to be either canceled or postponed.
After the 1937 tournament, typically a biennial event, a decade passed before the next one due to World War II. The 2001 tournament was postponed a year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Reach AnnMarie Hilton at ahilton@gannett.com or (920) 242-3032. Follow her on Twitter at @hilton_annmarie.