Walking through the clubhouse at Pinehurst No. 2 a few days ago, I was struck anew by the old framed photographs arrayed on the walls. Hogan, Snead and Nelson are there. Babe Zaharias and Louise Suggs, too. Bobby Jones. Payne Stewart. Arnie. They are the slowly fading images of slowly fading legends who left a mark at the cradle of American golf. All are gone now, but that hallway in Pinehurst testifies to the truth that a professional golfer’s accomplishments will still be commemorated long after they have reached six under for the final time.
That fact should be borne in mind by those journeying to San Francisco this week to commence a major championship season that ought to have already concluded last month in England. Our compromised calendar kicks off with the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park and wraps with the Masters three months hence, with the USGA’s delayed showcase in between. (The R&A opted to sit out the year after realizing it had missed the two-week window that represents a British summer.)
In short, as bastardized as 2020 has been, there is still 75% of everything to play for.
The three majors that will (hopefully) be played this year will count on someone’s résumé just as much as the 451 contested previously. But some players may need to hit a reset button on that reality before action gets underway Thursday. Consider what Rory McIlroy said last week about the PGA Tour events staged since the resumption of play two months ago.
“All these tournaments are created by their atmosphere and every one has a different feel, and every tournament since coming back off the lockdown has felt the same, whether it’s the Colonial or the Travelers Championship or the Memorial or whatever it’s been,” he said. “It’s the people and the atmosphere, that’s what makes a tournament and when you don’t have that, there’s nothing really for them to differentiate themselves.”
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McIlroy’s comment was more observation than complaint, but he must know that he’s entering a week during which the job of differentiating what is important falls squarely on him, not on fans or tournament organizers. Perhaps recent tournaments have felt like an amorphous appetizer course, but famished fans have chowed down, grateful for the sustenance and the work that went into providing it. The PGA Championship is the first main course we’ve been served in ’20 — 219 days into the year — and the best in the game will need to show up hungry.
The recently deposed world No. 1 has reason to feel discombobulated. McIlroy was in sparkling form before COVID-19 crashed head-on into the season but since returning he has been rusty, inconsistent and frustrated. His painstaking preparation for the majors was upended by the pandemic, but the months-long disruption cannot be allowed to metastasize into this week too.
McIlroy isn’t the only man heading west in search of a fresh start on a big stage. The two-time defending champion Brooks Koepka has struggled with his game, his gait and his gang since the Tour resumed, a halting mixture of poor play, a bum knee and his caddie testing positive for coronavirus, which gave Koepka an unexpected and unwelcome extra week off. He contended in his title defense in Memphis and would surprise no one by doing so again in San Francisco. Koepka shows up for majors as dependably as frat boys do for a kegger.
Like the Tour schedule, this PGA Championship is fundamentally diminished by circumstance. How can it not be? Some players declined to travel to compete given the risks. Media has been largely confined to remote coverage, lowering the typically glaring klieg lights in which some players wilt. Then there’s the absence of galleries that both McIlroy and Koepka have lamented.
Crowd energy has fueled many a major champion, amplifying the pressure down the stretch as its cheers and groans announce charges and catastrophes. The 102nd PGA Championship will take place in quiet worthy of a confessional. That may help the comparative also-rans in the field who might otherwise be ill-suited to the rowdy cauldron of a major Sunday, allowing them the psychological luxury of treating one of golf’s great events as just another sedate Tour stop.
No matter who it is, or how he does it, it will still count.
And decades from now there will still be a photo on a wall, long after the particulars of the pandemic have faded from memory.
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