A Ryder Cup without thunderous, nationalistic legions of fans?
A Masters without patrons and roars echoing through the Georgia pines?
A U.S. Open and PGA Championship played in silence?
“I don’t want to visualize that,” Sir Nick Faldo told Golfweek this week about the possible soundless scenarios due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. “I think matches or games or some tournaments are fine without fans, but finals? I would deem the Ryder Cup a final, just like the Super Bowl and the World Series. And the major championships fall in that line, too.
“You have to have fans for the atmosphere, I would think.”
The lead golf analyst for CBS Sports and member of the World Golf Hall of Fame knows of what he speaks. He won the Masters three times (Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Faldo are the only players to win back-to-back green jackets). Won the Open Championship three times. Lost in a playoff in the U.S. Open to Curtis Strange in 1988. Tied for second in the 1992 PGA Championship.
And Faldo played in the Ryder Cup 11 times and was the captain of Europe when the U.S. won in 2008. He’s been in the CBS tower analyzing the play before him at scores of majors.
“Fans are really more than the atmosphere. They are part of the event,” Faldo said. “I laugh thinking when Tommy Fleetwood does his famous celebration in the Ryder Cup when he holes his putt, he’s going to look around and see nobody and he’s screaming to birds at Whistling Straits? Or Tiger fist-pumps after a huge putt and hears crickets?
“I get when sports starts and finding a way to do it without fans for the safety until we get things organized and people can really be well tested safely. But I can’t see, what I call them, finals, when you really do need the atmosphere to make it something special, to be held without fans.”
But if the finals are conducted without fans?
“If they do go forward without fans, then everybody is going to have to be really adaptable to anything,” Faldo said. “If you’re going to go play tournament golf and you’re really inspired by the atmosphere of the fans, you better get used to ramping up your own adrenaline and your own intensity. And you better learn quick or don’t go and play.
“It will come easier for some guys and harder for others, who are trying to figure out when to fist-pump or how to get motivated in silence. It will be a weird feeling coming down to the last holes and people are doing great things and your playing partners are going, ‘Yeah, nice putt, mate,’ and there’s no other noise.”
The current plan for the PGA Tour’s restart scheduled for June 11 at the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, is for the first four events to be played without fans. Faldo, 62, will have to get used to the silent ways as he’ll be in the CBS tower for a solid two months if the PGA Tour is able to restart in June. He’s confident he’ll adapt, just as he has for the past eight weeks since he’s been sheltered at home in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
“This is probably the longest period in my golf career, probably since I was 18, where I’ve been in one place,” he said. “Starting on eight weeks now. The longest before that was five, which was 16 years ago.
“At times, I struggled to get two weeks in one place. And it looks like we’re definitely going to go at least another six weeks. But we’re very fortunate. Life in Ponte Vedra is very good. We’re really disciplined doing the shelter at home.”
Now he just has a different routine.
“I have a routine on the road. You get up, go to the gym, eat breakfast, then go to the golf course,” he said. “I see the course, see some players and get the story for the day. Then it’s off to the tower and you get yourself set up and the CBS crew in the tower is great and it’s good fun. And then the great Jim Nantz arrives and off we go. And there are no two rounds alike so that’s great. You don’t know what’s coming. So we rattle away for whatever time it may be.”
Now, he says, he’s really busy doing nothing.
“But I have been doing a lot of brainstorming, thinking about what shows I want to film, lots of business ideas as well,” he said. “So, it’s between chilling and educating ourselves. Watching a lot of smart TV shows. Doing new exercises trying to lose an inch or two on the waistline. And trying to look past the bar to have a quick drink on the hour.
“Interesting times, these are.”
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