Tag: A year in golf

Schmitt: Lessons I learned in 2021 from Jason Kokrak, Patrick Cantlay (and his caddie), and Keith Mitchell

While 2021 might not have been perfect, it was another year for some great walks following a little white ball.

What makes working for one of the world’s largest news organizations (Gannett/USA Today) covering the world’s greatest game as exhilarating as a thrill ride atop a Vegas casino is the uninterrupted news cycle.

There is no true downtime. No actual silly season. When the PGA and LPGA tours are slow, there’s a bevy of captivating amateur and college stories to sift through. When that tapers off, there’s always a new course to dig into, a new swing technique to consider, or a groundbreaking piece of equipment that might just transform you from weekend warrior to Champions Tour contender.

And while it’s easy to get self-indulgent about your own year around this great sport — OK, I’ll play along, I roughed things up at Olympic Club, Bay Hill, Torrey Pines (with Mike Whan), Austin Country Club, TPC Scottsdale, Houston’s Memorial Park, and Whispering Pines, among others in 2021 — what I truly appreciate are the lessons we learn along the way.

For example, our Beth Ann Nichols considered one of her 2021 highlights a conversation she had with 94-year-old legend Shirley Spork, one that illustrated the absurdity of this sport we love:

“Golf is a game that in four and a half hours you’re a star; you’re a bum; you’re average,” Spork said. “In 18 holes, you’re all those things. Golf is not a game of perfect, it’s a game of playable misses.”

Hallelujah.

And while I only attend a handful of events, leaving the coverage heavy lifting to stars like Nichols, Steve DiMeglio, Adam Schupak, Eamon Lynch and David Dusek, I was reminded of a few key lessons while pitching in:

Jason Kokrak (USA) and Kevin Na (USA) react during the final round of the 2021 QBE Shootout, Sunday, Dec. 12, 2021, at Tiburón Golf Club at The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort in Naples, Fla. 2021 QBE Shootout final round.

From Jason Kokrak:
Laugh at the highs, and the lows

My question came out awkwardly. Moments after he’d captured the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open, his third PGA Tour victory overall and second in the state of Texas, I pointed out to Jason Kokrak how horribly he’d played the back nine at Memorial Park through the first two rounds.

Since he lit up the back on Sunday, he must have figured out something along the way, right?

I opened with, “not just the Saturday morning debacle that you had, but you didn’t play the back very well in your first round either.”

Kokrak sat up a bit.

“Easy with ‘the debacle,’ ” Kokrak replied, looking sternly my way.

A few seconds later, the 6-foot-4 Ohio resident let out a hearty Midwestern laugh.

“Yeah … it was a debacle,” he said with a wide smile. “I got into some uncomfortable situations for me and I compounded the problem myself, but I tried not to let that bug me.”

To follow Kokrak on a Sunday is to see an affable fellow, one who’s plenty competitive, but after years of toiling in the middle of the pack, has used a slightly elongated putter to enjoy a new level of success.

But now that he’s a changed player, Kokrak doesn’t seem to have changed his personality much — he’s a big, strong likable guy who didn’t mind playing antagonist to Jordan Spieth at Colonial and was happy to joke about his ugly play early on at Houston. The game is too hard to not enjoy a good laugh.

Kokrak keeps laughing, just now with deeper pockets.

Team USA player Patrick Cantlay reacts to the gallery on the 17th green during day two foursomes rounds for the 43rd Ryder Cup golf competition at Whistling Straits. Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports

From Patrick Cantlay (and his caddie): Ride things out until you get hot

Like Billy Horschel before him, Patrick Cantlay turned one hot streak into a career-altering season, but it could have easily gone another way.

It’s easy to forget that Cantlay had a stretch last spring in which he failed to make the weekend four times in six starts. He missed the cut at both the Masters and the British Open.

But Cantlay was nothing if not an opportunist. His win at the Memorial will be more remembered as the tournament that saw leader Jon Rahm stripped from the field due to a positive COVID test.

Things got interesting as the lucrative FedEx Cup playoffs approached — his caddie, Matt Minister, tested positive for COVID and while he was out, Cantlay brought in Tiger Woods’ caddie, Joe LaCava, for the first playoff event.

But instead of sending Cantlay into a tailspin, he put together a solid showing at the Northern Trust with LaCava, then got white-hot with Minister back on his bag — winning the BMW Championship and eventually taking home the $15 million FedEx Cup after an impressive showing at the Tour Championship.

For “the Rev” (what else would you call a man named Minister?), that meant a shift from thinking he might be out of a gig to financial security for life.

“Never in my wildest dreams,” the caddie told Craig Dolch when asked to describe the events. “I knew Patrick was playing well … part of it hasn’t set in yet.”

PGA: Zurich Classic of New Orleans - Final Round
Keith Mitchell walks the 13th fairway during the final round of the Zurich Classic of the New Orleans golf tournament. Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports

From Keith Mitchell:
This is still fun, dammit.

While covering the aforementioned Houston Open, I received an invite for a private event with a few of the Sweetens Cove owners, including Peyton Manning.

I assumed Peyton would do the typical ambassador fly-by — the type of pop-in that celebrities have to offer when they’re associated with a brand.

Instead, Manning was one of the first at the gathering, and his initial order of business was to fill out a name tag. As if others might not recognize him.

Soon after Manning arrived, so did PGA Tour star Keith Mitchell, who was eager to talk about the course that sits less than an hour from his home in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

When I asked how he got involved with the leadership group, Mitchell joked that they asked him to come aboard soon after he won the 2019 Honda Classic, “because they probably assumed I had some money to burn.” Mitchell is a cool character, one who eases through a room rather than charging it, as Manning does.

But Mitchell’s eyes perked when I asked why he was on-hand at this event, especially since he was in the middle of a workweek. Was he obligated to attend? Was this contractual?

“Yeah, I’m not here for any of that (expletive). I’m here because this is fun. This is really fun,” he said. “We have a golf course that’s fun and playable and a bourbon that tastes great. How do you beat that?”

You don’t.

It must be easy to fall into the trappings that surround Tour players. Free stuff. Big money. Access to anything.

But at the end of the day, it’s still a game. An incredible game. And perhaps the best way to enjoy time with good friends. I’ve yet to make the trek to Sweetens, but those who have insist it’s the perfect place to get together with your favorite people.

This has not been lost on Mitchell, who clearly has his head on his shoulders.

Happy holidays, all. While 2021 might not have been perfect, it was another year for lessons, incredible stories, and some great walks following a little white ball.

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Williams: Phone interviews and high-school golf were sanity-saving in a year of contingency plans

What the professional tours did to bring back golf was totally impressive, but don’t discount the efforts in junior and amateur golf.

Covering golf, at every level and on every tour, in 2020 was unlike anything our writers have experienced. Through the end of the year, our staff is looking back on what will forever stand out from the season of COVID – a season during which every aspect of the game we love was impacted by a global pandemic. Read the whole series here.

I’ve spent eight months asking some version of the same question, and that’s the best way I know to sum up golf journalism in the year of COVID. Everyone has a story as we will ourselves toward 2021. For the most part, we all learned to adapt.

How did you go on despite a global pandemic? To hear that question answered is to get a lesson in the ingenuity behind a game that, at its heart, really needs no bells and whistles.

What the professional tours did to bring back golf was, without question, totally impressive. They threw their resources at getting their players back in the office, something especially important for players on the bottom rung – the ones who desperately needed the paycheck.

But I don’t cover golf at the professional level and thus, there was much more improvisation in my zip code, where the one-off junior and amateur events live.

For months, I’ve been going back to how Brian Fahey, Pinehurst’s director of tournament operations, broke this all down. In June, Fahey spoke of record entry numbers for the North & South Amateur and Women’s Amateur (that tells you something of demand). He also explained how the events would be boiled down in 2020. Summer amateur season encompasses golf, but also dinners, social outings and host housing.

At many events, those extras simply went away in the name of preserving the golf.

“This was our communication to the players: This is going to be golf almost in its purest form,” Fahey said in summing it up.

Six months later, at the end of a mind-blowing 101-event COVID season, AJGA Executive Director Stephen Hamblin detailed a massive undertaking in his organization that saw the creation of an 18-page COVID playbook that guided the AJGA in revamping nearly every procedure it takes to run a summer full of junior tournaments all over the country.

I logged fewer miles in 2020 than any year since I started writing about golf in 2009. I’ve also maybe never spent more time on the phone. My summer and fall were spent scouring scoreboards, hitting refresh, tracking down phone numbers and listening closely to verbal highlight reels of rounds I couldn’t see in person. While I miss watching live golf on my beat (a sincere thank you, USGA, for primetime Bandon broadcasts during the U.S. Amateur – a true gift), realizing just how many people live to talk amateur golf was comforting. I didn’t encounter one person who couldn’t find a few minutes to pick up the phone and talk.

John Yerger, co-chairman of the Sunnehanna Amateur, was one of the first people I called when trying to piece together what the summer amateur season was going to look like. Yerger & Co., carried on with a 100-man tournament, but I think he would have invited double or triple that number if it were possible.

“You can’t turn away a kid who has no place to play,” he said back in June.

In Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, Bruce Fleming, the tournament director of the Rice Planters Amateur, felt just as much responsibility to carry on with his slot on the summer calendar. Fleming labored over doing things right if he was going to do them at all.

“We have to do it in a manner that is appropriate and successful for what is going on.”

Ah, the unsung heroes of amateur golf.

I had some unexpected down time in 2020. Didn’t we all? I played more rounds – walking, bag on back – than I have since graduating college. My handicap is as low as it’s ever been.

In my little Florida beach town, our 27-hole muni only closed for a week in July. But in April, when the pro shop started closing early, word spread quickly. Shortly after 5 p.m., the parking lot was packed. But with the cart barn locked, it was all foot traffic from there. There was also no formal tee sheet, but shockingly, the first tee never descended into a free-for-all. The place was full of families – kids, moms, strollers. For the first time in a long time, dusk golf became my favorite way to end a day.

The phenomenon continued all the way to August. This marked my fourth season coaching the local high school girls golf team, and attendance at summer practices (or “play days,” as I call them) is generally sporadic. Not this year.

I averaged 15 players on days we hit the driving range and 10 or 12 on days we played nine holes. I once interviewed a First Tee director who described her New England facility as “crawling with kids.” I’ve always wanted to describe my home course that way, and I’m happy to say we achieved it this summer. Something tells me it wasn’t just us.

Of course, by the time our season rolled around, every one of the precious few matches the school district allowed us to play required at least three phone calls as COVID regulations changed, reversed and changed again. We wore our masks when we gathered, did everything in squads of no more than six and started every practice with temperature checks. Life went on.

We had to celebrate our senior night on an outdoor porch in the middle of a wicked thunderstorm, rethink the way we “broke it down” before and after matches and instead of a Homecoming pep rally, we were asked to film a hype video for our team. At the end of the season, a senior told me this was maybe her favorite year yet on the golf team. I had just been relieved to see it through but hearing that changed everything about the way I’ll look back on this COVID season.

I fought so hard to keep every high school match on the schedule because I heard so many veteran college coaches stress how important it was for their players to keep competing, keep grinding, keep getting tournament reps, even if college golf was canceled for the forseeable future.

At Golfweek, we scraped and strategized to help solve that problem. Our fall college series is usually one of my favorite parts of the year, but with so many teams unable to compete in the first half of the season, that series transformed into eight new individual events.

I was on-hand for half of them, and I’ll never forget how grateful those players were. I’ll also never forget how many questions we’d get from college coaches if players didn’t keep up with live-scoring input.

That tells you something about how college coaches spent the fall, too. Refresh, refresh, refresh.

As empty as my beat felt on March 13 – the day NCAA postseason was canceled for all spring sports, golf included – my golf life on Dec. 27 feels pretty full. I know I’ve said it a hundred times in 2020, but this is a year I’ll never forget.

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Schmitt: Everyone felt like a newbie when golf returned in Fort Worth

While the pandemic has been devastating on so many fronts, it’s also given many of us a renewed perspective

Covering golf in 2020, at every level and on every tour, was unlike anything our writers have experienced. Through the end of the year, our staff is looking back on what will forever stand out from the season of COVID – a season during which every aspect of the game we love was impacted by a global pandemic. Read the whole series here.

It had been a long time since I was the newbie.

My first newspaper byline — a high school baseball game I still vividly remember — came in 1989 in my hometown newspaper outside Buffalo, N.Y. I typed a dozen-or-so paragraphs on a vintage Brother typewriter, using gobs of whiteout to correct mistakes, all before dropping the finished product in the mailslot of my local paper for staffers to then retype into oversized computers the next morning in advance of a 9 a.m. deadline.

I’ve been fortunate enough to cover plenty of major events ever since. In fact, I’ve been in a room with many of the sports world’s biggest names; Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Tom Brady, LeBron James, Jim Kelly, Tiger Woods and Mike Krzyzewski are among those who’ve fielded a question from yours truly over the past three-plus decades, whether they liked it or not. Usually, they were indifferent.

But there was something unique about making the drive from my home in Round Rock, Texas, just outside Austin, to cover the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth last June. It was only a three-hour trip, but at the time it seemed as if I was headed for a different planet. After months of sitting in my home office, this was finally a chance to get back out into society, to interact with athletes and to feel the thrill of competition.

When I got the job at Golfweek, just a few weeks before COVID brought the country to a halt, I’d been thrust back into the position of new kid on the block. I had to earn my spot on a seasoned roster with folks like Steve DiMeglio, Beth Ann Nichols, David Dusek, Adam Schupak and Eamon Lynch. There was no longer a need for whiteout, but the sentiment was the same.

I was the rookie.

The only reason I covered the Schwab was that we didn’t want our reporters to fly cross-country during the pandemic. Colonial Country Club was a quick drive for me, so I loaded up my truck and left before sunrise on a Tuesday morning, making only one pit stop — to snap a photo of the sun rising through Baylor’s McLane Stadium about halfway along I-35 from Austin to Fort Worth.

Baylor’s McLane Stadium at 6:48 a.m. on June 9, 2020, the first day media members were allowed back on the grounds of a PGA Tour event after COVID. (Photo by Tim Schmitt)

Being a grizzled ol’ media veteran, a room full of scribes and cameras doesn’t faze me much, but the setting at Colonial Country Club did. First, there was no traffic. None. In fact, I nearly pulled into the players’ lot upon arrival and only realized I’d made a mistake when an officer asked to see my players tag. Since my handicap is somewhere in the low teens, I didn’t have a Tour card readily available.

And even after getting on the grounds at Colonial, the scene was still unlike any other I’d experienced. When I covered the Final Four in San Antonio two years prior, I was crammed into press row so tightly I had to excuse those around me to grab a water bottle from the back of the table.

But at Colonial, they had us sanctioned off in distant stations, making small talk next to impossible. There were only about two dozen folks in the media room, and players were somewhere nearby on the grounds during interview sessions, yet we reporters had to stare into laptops to converse with them.

Media members talk to Justin Thomas via Zoom at Colonial Country Club in advance of the Charles Schwab Challenge.

Even for longtime golf writers around me, this was a whole new world.

After a few morning interviews, I headed outside to the practice green and that’s when it really hit me — this might have been unfamiliar territory for me, but everyone was acting like a rookie. The wide smiles. The hearty laughs. The camaraderie.

Practice rounds on the PGA Tour, which I knew from previous samplings, are always lighter, but they typically have a lunchpail feel. Players are enjoying a little sun, but they’re clearly working — finding the most advantageous spots in each fairway, looking for angles that suit their game, studiously soaking up their time on each green and mapping out potential pin placements.

But at Colonial, while there was some preparation taking place in advance of the tournament, this was clearly more about mental well-being. As much as these guys ruthlessly try to rip trophies from each others’ mitts each week, they do it together. Since they don’t have teams, per se, other competitors are the one constant. It’s unlike other sports in that regard. There is no team practice to keep the competitive juices flowing.

The distance, and downtime, was unsettling to many. And at Colonial, they were happy to be together again, acting almost like schoolkids in the process. The only interviews held in-person were by TV crews at the turn, and players even seemed to enjoy this sometimes tedious chore.

Graeme McDowell stops at the turn to chat with a TV crew during the Charles Schwab Challenge. (Photo by Tim Schmitt)

Of course, it wasn’t just PGA Tour players who were ecstatic tournament play had restarted. Viewership on Golf Channel for the opening round of the Schwab was up 160 percent over the previous year. Some like Pat Henggeler who lived on or near the course took advantage by building structures to watch players whisk by.

Jun 13, 2020; Fort Worth, Texas, USA; Lauren Herman (middle) serves beverages to golf fans who are watching the third round of the Charles Schwab Challenge golf tournament from temporary bleachers in the backyard of a house bordering Colonial Country Club with views of the 15th green and 16th tee box. Raymond Carlin III-USA TODAY Sports.

But I assumed fans would be starving for action. What I didn’t expect was for longtime PGA Tour pros to act like this was their first go-round.

The perch from which fans watched on the 15th green included a makeshift PA announcer, who catcalled players as they came through. In other settings, this would have caused an uproar among players. In Fort Worth, however, they happily engaged with the fans. Phil Mickelson showed off his calves when the group asked, and Bryson DeChambeau waved when the announcer joked that the buffed-up star was “weighing in at 350 pounds.”

Later in the season, I was on hand for the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit, the Vivint Houston Open and the U.S. Women’s Open, all great experiences.

But they weren’t the same as the Schwab. For whatever reason.

It’s easy to get sucked into the daily grind. It happens to us all — writers, fans and even PGA Tour players.

And while the pandemic has been devastating on so many fronts, it’s also given many of us a renewed perspective. These moments — in competition, in victory, in sadness, in cooperation — are fleeting, even if they don’t feel so at the time. They might seem overwhelming, stressful, even burdensome. But when they’re gone, we’ll all look back and wish we could live through them one more time.

Wide-eyed. Like newbies.

Tim Schmitt is the managing editor of Golfweek. Follow him on Twitter at @TMSGolfweek.

 

 

Schupak: 2020 was stranger than the morning sky in Napa during the Safeway Open

Senior writer Adam Schupak chronicles the moments that made covering the golf scene in 2020 a year unlike any other.

Covering golf, at every level and on every tour, in 2020 was unlike anything our writers have experienced. Through the end of the year, our staff is looking back on what will forever stand out from the season of COVID – a season during which every aspect of the game we love was impacted by a global pandemic. Read the whole series here.

I was staying in a boutique hotel in Brussels after the 2018 Ryder Cup when I read a quote on, of all things, a Trip Advisor ad that spoke to me: “Traveling—it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”

I looked it up and it’s attributed to Ibn Battuta, a 14th-century Moroccan explorer and scholar. Those are words I’ve very much lived by covering 20-plus tournaments a year for more than a decade, which have taken me to far-flung places such as Singapore, China, Turkey, Israel, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. The list goes on but you get the idea.

All of that came to a screeching halt in March when the PGA Tour and the golf world in general went on hiatus due to a global pandemic. I never left the country this year and avoided flying, well, like the plague. I don’t know about you but I haven’t exercised at a gym, gone to the movies, shaken hands or seen most of my family members, other than via Zoom calls, since March.

Plenty of love for Jordan Spieth at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in late January before the pandemic prevented fan attendance at most PGA Tour events (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

But there were a few early-season trips before the world changed that provided stories worth telling, including to the desert for the Waste Management Phoenix Open. It seems a lifetime ago that 20,000 drunk people ringed the 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale like the Romans at the Coliseum. The highlight of that week was a wide-ranging discussion with Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee that exploded into a three-part Q&A.

From there, it was on to Pebble Beach, and it doesn’t matter how many times I visit the Monterey Peninsula, it never gets old. The weather even cooperated. I got to break bread with some of my favorite folks that week and squeeze in 18 at Pacific Grove and take a test spin around TPC Harding Park. One evening, I was packing up my belongings from the media center and ready to hit up a sushi joint I discovered during the previous year’s U.S. Open visit, when a local writer that I had been chatting with at breakfast stopped by my desk and invited me over to his house to join his family’s dinner. That was an incredibly kind gesture. Traveling to exotic locales to play or watch golf doesn’t suck, but life on the road isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Having a good home-cooked meal and better conversation hit the spot and I appreciated it even more when the world soon after went into lockdown.

In the year 2020, even Donald Ross was wearing a mask (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

I flew the red eye home from California and I’ll never know for sure if I had coronavirus or just the run-of-the-mill flu but I was as sick as I’ve been for a long time the next two weeks and even had to WD from covering the Honda Classic with a high fever. This was pre-masks, hand sanitizers and runs on toilet paper. What a year!

The other meal I can’t help but think of is the annual Asado night at The Players, held on the eve of the tournament. It began at the Masters and was co-hosted by Spanish golfer Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano and the Argentine Golf Association. I remember one year telling Gonzo, who wasn’t yet eligible for the Masters, that he needed to win and a lot of people were depending on him so we could have asado. He smiled and told me, don’t worry, we’ll do Asado night at the Players if I don’t make the Masters. And that’s been the tradition ever since.

Hideki Matsuyama tied the TPC Sawgrass course record only to have the Players canceled later that night due to the global pandemic (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

It is a gathering of two-dozen or so golf industry leaders from Latin America and elsewhere (including R&A chief Martin Slumbers and his wife) with R&A regional director of Latin America Mark Lawrie as grill master. Held at their oceanside rental property in Ponte Vedra under a tent, it’s become one of my favorite nights of the year – I think I’m still full from all the beef, Argentine wine and dulce de leche – but it became memorable as the last big dinner party I’ve attended. After the ceremonial drive of a few glow balls into the ocean, I drove home just shortly before 10 p.m. and was greeted with news that the Tour had come to its senses and canceled the Players. Not long after, the Masters was postponed and we’d endure a 91-day hiatus before another tournament round was contested. Remember how desperate we were for live competition that we were watching marble races?

During these uncertain times, golf was my salvation. Living in Florida, the courses remained open – though the beaches shut down for a while – and so Gary Koch would have declared my quarantine was better than most. With some extra time on my hands I decided now was the time to learn to hit a baby cut. I’d only been playing a boomerang draw – I prefer not to use that other four-letter word – for 40 years. Trying to overhaul my swing by digging it out of the dirt Hogan style has been an adventure. I remember bragging that I had it down pat but when I went to play Palatka Golf Club with colleagues Julie Williams and Jason Lusk, I kept hitting left of left. It reminded me of the old Bugs Bunny skit where the singing frog only lets out a ribbit in front of a crowd. If you don’t know that one, check it out below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsROL4Kf8QY

I recorded 75 18-hole scores in 2020, which doesn’t include some hit-n-giggle team events and that many of those rounds combined two evening nines. All told, I’m guessing I’m well over 100 days of golf this year. So, 2020 hasn’t been a total loss. My game is still fragile and for all the effort my handicap has gone down a whopping 0.4 strokes … but it didn’t go up this year, so I’ve got that going for me.

Camilo Villegas surprised members of the media with news that his daughter Mia had cancer during a tearful press conference (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

During the lockdown, I dove into the old Rolodex and did a series of Q&A’s (Quarantined and Answered) with some of my favorite talkers: David Duval, Sean Foley, Jim Furyk, Tony Jacklin, Vijay Singh, Charles Barkley, Johnny Miller and Tom Weiskopf. For all the Microsoft Teams and Zoom calls that helped us do our jobs, there’s no replacement for being present at a tournament and personal contact. So, I drove 12-plus hours with a pit stop at Sweetens Cove to cover the WGC St. Jude Invitational in Memphis and a Sunday duel between a resurgent Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas, who had Jim “Bones” Mackay fill in in on the bag and paired with one Phil Mickelson and brother Tim. Yeah, I missed that.

The importance of simply being there couldn’t have been more evident a few weeks earlier when Camilo Villegas broke into tears at the start of his press conference ahead of the Korn Ferry Challenge at TPC Sawgrass as he detailed that his 18-month old daughter, Mia, was battling cancerous tumors in her brain. A little more than a month later her fight was over. I was in Jackson, Mississippi in October when Villegas sat down with me and opened his heart about dealing with loss and how it was his mission to make something good come from Mia’s death. This time, I was the one holding back tears. To hear him talk about seeing one of Mia’s beloved rainbows on the first tee at the RSM Classic and contend for the title until Sunday was almost too good to be true.

Lisa Cink congratulates son Reagan on a job well done on the bag for his father Stewart Cink after his victory at the Safeway Open in September (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

But there was another feel-good story in the fall season that delivered a full payoff. Seeing Stewart Cink end his 11-year victory drought at age 47, and with his son Reagan on the bag, gave me all the feels. I remember speaking to Cink after his wife, Lisa, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016, and here she was cancer-free, a one-woman cheering section for her guys at a spectator-free tournament as Stewart showed he could still close on Sundays. Color me inspired and thank you, Stewart, for these words I’m going to try to live by in 2021: “I just try to squeeze every little bit of juice I can out of my golf game, out of that lemon.”

Let’s all make some lemonade in 2021 out of the lemon that was 2020.

My favorite photo of 2020: Tiger Woods enjoys some quality father-son time watching Charlie practice after the first round of the PNC Championship from the comfort of his golf bag (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

Dusek: 2020 was a rollercoaster, but it also brought a renewed love for this game we won’t soon forget

When equipment writer David Dusek first looked at the 2020 calendar, he didn’t think it could set up any better. Oh, how that changed.

Covering golf, at every level and on every tour, in 2020 was unlike anything our writers have experienced. Through the end of the year, our staff is looking back on what will forever stand out from the season of COVID – a season during which every aspect of the game we love was impacted by a global pandemic. Read the whole series here.

Everything was going just dandy until it all went to hell.   

A year ago, looking ahead to 2020, I thought it could not be set up better. Tiger Woods would be the defending champion at the Masters in April, ensuring the annual rite of spring would be electric. After that, it was off to San Francisco and TPC Harding Park for the PGA Championship and then back east to Winged Foot.

In July, Royal St. George would host the British Open before golfers would be joining other athletes at the Olympics in Tokyo in August. Then, we’d enjoy FedEx Cup playoffs and then a Ryder Cup here in the United States. Oh yeah, the U.S. Amateur was going to Bandon Dunes, the U.S. Women’s Open was slotted for Champions Golf Club in Houston, and I was researching whether I would celebrate my 50th birthday in October with a trip to Pinehurst or Sand Valley. Asking for a better setup for my golf year would be gluttonous.  

The PGA Merchandise Show gave me a great chance to catch up with friends and industry folks, even if it was so cold in Orlando last January that iguanas were falling out of trees. But flying back down to Orlando in March, I saw someone wearing a mask on my flight from Hartford. Word had started to spread about a virus in the Pacific Northwest that had come from China, but it did not affect me or anyone I knew. We were being encouraged to wash our hands a lot, so I was happy that the TSA did not confiscate the hand sanitizer bottle I had in my carry-on bag.  

When I got to Bay Hill for the Arnold Palmer Invitational, everything seemed fine, but I took note of who shook hands and who fist-bumped friends. I fist-bumped and talked with players, caddies and reps from equipment companies around the massive practice green. Billy Horschel was looking for new clubs, Rory McIlroy told me that he sometimes took cold showers before bed to encourage a better night’s rest and I was able to swipe two more handfuls of Arnold Palmer tees for my collection before boarding a mask-less flight back to Hartford on Wednesday evening.  

Arnold Palmer tees
Tees available to golfers at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

A week later, on March 11, the NBA shut down after Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus. Eighteen holes were played at TPC Sawgrass, but we wondered if spectators might be kept away from the Players Championship over the weekend. Then, on Friday, Jay Monahan made the right call in suspending The Players and the next three events, starting a hiatus for the game that would last until June.  

As I write this, about 18 million people have now tested positive for the coronavirus in the United States, and nearly 320,000 people have died. It’s heartbreaking. I hate that being safe meant my kids had to start going to school virtually, that businesses had to shut down and people lost their jobs. I hate that I was furloughed for seven weeks during the spring and summer.  

Unbelievably, however, I can make a compelling argument that COVID-19 has been massively positive for golf. As spring bloomed, people around the country played without shaking hands, paid greens fees online and kept the flagstick in the hole. Golf was proving to be one of the few things that people could enjoy safely during the pandemic, and people everywhere were re-discovering how fun it can be.  

In early May, Massachusetts became the last state to allow courses to re-open. Equipment sales boomed, tee times at courses around the country were booked solid. I talked with a pushcart company in mid-May and was told its inventory was sold out until August.

Media Center at TPC River Highlands
My workspace for the week at TPC River Highlands during the 2020 Travelers Championship. David Dusek/Golfweek)

The first PGA Tour event I attended after Bay Hill was the Travelers Championship in late June. I was tested for COVID-19 on Saturday before the tournament started, then worked at a desk surrounded by plexiglass. No talking with players. No access to the practice area. No access to the locker room or clubhouse. Press conferences were conducted via Zoom. Yes, I could go on the course, but there were no fans out there besides the homeowners watching from their backyards.  

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I was surprised to see so few players and caddies wearing masks. After all, Nick Watney had tested positive the week before in Hilton Head. After Brooks Koepka and Graeme McDowell withdrew because their caddies had tested positive, Monahan held a virtual press conference and spoke to the players through the media: Guys, take this seriously or you’re going to screw it up for everyone. The next day, Thursday, things were different. Masks were everywhere. The Tour even signed a deal with Whoop, a wearable company that makes the device that tipped off Watney that he might have contracted COVID-19. It distributed the wearables to all the players, caddies and tournament officials. 

Meanwhile, my kids discovered golf, which meant if I was willing to buy ice cream after their lessons and our range sessions, I could hit more balls. I am happy to report that 11-year-old Lindsay Dusek was the last person on the range on National Women’s Golf Day in June. 

Lindsay Dusek
My daughter, Lindsay, on the range at Lyman Orchards Golf Center at the end of National Women’s Golf Day. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

I was one of a handful of people who walked 18 holes at TPC Boston following Rory and Tiger after seeing Dustin Johnson shoot 60. I saw Bryson DeChambeau overpower Winged Foot and further spark the distance debate. I talked with Christina Kim, Ted Scott, Brittany Lincicome, Mike Davis and a host of other bright people on The Forward Press podcast.

In a year filled with sorrow and pain for so many people, in many ways, my year in golf has been a blessing. After several weeks of putting in the family room last spring, I never performed better on the greens. I’m driving the ball better too, but now my chipping stinks. That’s golf, and I will never take it for granted again.

Nichols: After months of nothing, the LPGA charted a triumphant return befitting of its founders

In 2020, the LPGA staged 18 tournaments, including four majors, and every sponsor that didn’t hold an event in 2020 is coming back in 2021.

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Covering golf, at every level and on every tour, in 2020 was unlike anything our writers have experienced. Through the end of the year, our staff is looking back on what will forever stand out from the season of COVID – a season during which every aspect of the game we love was impacted by a global pandemic. Read the whole series here.

The first day back after the LPGA’s 166-day break from tournament golf, my head swiveled back ’round to the 10th tee at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, after spotting Sophia Popov carrying Anne van Dam’s staff bag. Popov had been lighting it up on the Cactus Tour, a women’s mini tour in Arizona which never stopped throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. I made a mental note. Times were tough for everyone, but especially for those who had lost their LPGA cards.

The next week, still in Toledo, it was the sleek, minimalist pull cart van Dam sported at the Marathon Classic that caught my eye. The story got even better when I discovered that it was actually Popov’s high-end pull cart, and that she was using it for the afternoon wave.

Two players, one pull cart.

A fun sidebar to the story of Danielle Kang sweeping the first two events back.

LPGA: Marathon LPGA Classic - First Round
Sophia Popov from Germany brought a juCad pull cart with her to the Marathon LPGA Classic at Highlands Meadows Golf Club. (Photo: Marc Lebryk-USA TODAY Sports)

Popov was a Symetra Tour player who got into the Marathon Classic because the LPGA couldn’t fill the field. The Marathon also happens to be a qualifier for the AIG Women’s British Open, and by now, if you’ve paid any attention to women’s golf at all this year, you know how this story ends.

Popov, the 304th-ranked player in the world with no LPGA status, won the first women’s major ever held at Royal Troon. It was precisely the kind of hope-filled, against-all-odds story we all needed. One that inspired countless players whose dreams had been delayed that they too could pull a Popov.

“I almost quit playing last year,” said Popov. “Thank God I didn’t.”

It’s still quite stunning that the LPGA bravely took its tour bubble overseas for a two-week stint in Scotland after only a fortnight of testing its pandemic procedures in northern Ohio.

But it proved a raging success, much like the remainder of the year, when it comes to what matters most: health and opportunity.

LPGA commissioner Mike Whan found himself complaining about something to his wife, Meg, during the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship, and she quickly shut it down.

Mike, stop it. You didn’t lose a single employee in 2020; you didn’t have one hospitalized player, staff member, volunteer, local official; and you didn’t leave one venue in a worse situation than before you got there.

Bold it, shout it, repeat it. The 2020 LPGA season was an absolute triumph.

The tour faced $3.5 million in unplanned expenses, but Whan had the tour financially prepared for such a crisis with a robust rainy-day fund. There were 7,200 COVID-19 tests given since late July and a total of 42 came back positive, with only 15 coming from tournament sites (and some of those were later found to be false-positives).

There were 18 tournaments staged, including four majors, and every sponsor that didn’t hold an event in 2020 is coming back next year.

Even more impressive, the 2021 schedule will consist of 34 official events and a record $76.45 million in official purses. (And that number is expected to rise.)

“I think a lot of us thought the year might get scratched,” said Sarah Schmelzel.

That was the greatest fear.

Then the fears morphed into test anxiety, getting stranded overseas and testing positive at the majors, which Charley Hull, Andrea Lee and Charlotte Thomas know all about.

Mel Reid got fined for celebrating her maiden LPGA victory at a restaurant, even though it was a private party with her partner and caddie. The LPGA became a take-out tour, and while players were happy to stay safe, the lack of host-housing and social dinners took its toll.

Mel Reid holds the trophy after winning the ShopRite LPGA Classic in Galloway, New Jersey. (Photo: Michael Cohen/Getty Images)

“It really heightened the sense of loneliness out here,” said Schmelzel, “where you’re just in a hotel eating take-out every night. It makes you feel even more separated from home than usual.”

And yet, every hardship was met with an even bigger dose of gratefulness. For the safe flights, the committed volunteers, the loyal check-writers and the fans (television viewership up 30 percent!).

There was much to celebrate: PGA Tour players engaged in an unprecedented #womenworthwatching campaign during the U.S. Women’s Open that hopefully yields more long-term allies. A Lim Kim birdied the last three holes at Champions Golf Club to author one of the greatest finishes in major-championship history. Mirim Lee chipped in a mind-blowing three times to take the ANA Inspiration. (We won’t talk about the blue wall here or Popov’s controversial absence.) Cristie Kerr became the third player to cross the $20 million mark in career earnings, joining Annika Sorenstam and Karrie Webb.

And in the final event of the year, the top two players in women’s golf split the money and the hardware. Sei Young Kim took Rolex Player of Year honors; world No. 1 Jin Young Ko won the CME and the money title after only four starts, and went off to pick out furniture for the house she’s looking to buy in Frisco, Texas.

The LPGA staged 14 events during a global pandemic across nine states and Scotland, putting that first Drive On tournament together in only six weeks.

Take a bow, Mike Whan and team. Not the 70th anniversary season anyone had planned but, fittingly, a Founders-like example of what it means to be tough.

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DiMeglio: Covering the PGA Tour in 2020 amid an eerie emptiness revealed silver linings and signs of resilience

The lack of people at PGA Tour events in 2020 during a global pandemic was eerie, but it gave Steve DiMeglio a new look at a familiar arena.

Covering golf, at every level and on every tour, in 2020 was unlike anything our writers have experienced. Through the end of the year, our staff is looking back on what will forever stand out from the season of COVID – a season during which every aspect of the game we love was impacted by a global pandemic.

They remain haunting reminders of a year we’d like to forget.

Empty economy parking lots at airports.

It’s an image that first shook me as I headed to Ohio in July for a PGA Tour doubleheader at Muirfield Village, my first flight in five months. Already a tad on the uneasy side given COVID-19, nearly four months of quarantine and the potential risks undertaken on the ground and in the sky, seeing the massive, vacant economy parking lots at Jacksonville (Florida) International Airport was another unsettling, sobering sign the world was off kilter.

From Ohio to San Francisco to Las Vegas to Los Angeles to Chicago to Atlanta, the barren lots have yet to shed their vacuity and grim impact. Nor has the acreage of fan-less viewing sites at tournaments. Birdies and eagles are still met with silence. Conversations between player and caddie can still be heard from 30 yards away.

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport
The East Economy Lot at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is largely devoid of parked vehicles on April 13, 2020. (Photo: David Wallace/The Republic, Arizona Republic)

More than six months after the Tour returned in June following a 13-week break due to the global pandemic, the new world order remains as the traveling circus moves about North America – one consisting of masks, protective bubbles, COVID-19 tests, temperature checks, social distancing, Zoom calls, sparse media centers, elbow bumps and air hugs, sanitizing wipes, abundant hand washing, takeout orders and Uber Eats.

It has become a world of adaption, and the PGA Tour was up to the challenge. From the get-go after the COVID-19 shutdown – which began on Friday the 13th of March – the Tour adapted quickly and quite impressively. A disturbing scare in Hilton Head at the RBC Heritage the second week back, where spring break was raging along with the coronavirus to form an appalling twosome, was among the reasons PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan flew north from Florida to the Travelers Championship in Connecticut the following week to read the riot act to players and caddies. Monahan’s words did not fall on deaf ears as the players and caddies fully bought in and safety measures to combat the infectious predator were taken seriously and have been actively followed.

PGA: PGA Championship - Practice Round
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan walks on the first hole during a practice round for the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park. (Photo: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports)

With the bubble intact and all working as one, the golf went on – and was stellar that last half of the year, which helped at times to overshadow the unease due to COVID-19. Collin Morikawa winning twice, including his first major at the PGA Championship with the drive heard round the golf world. Bryson DeChambeau growing, smashing and putting his way to become the talk of golf while winning twice, including his first major at the U.S. Open where he battered his colleagues and venerable Winged Foot.

Jon Rahm winning at Jack’s place in Dublin, Ohio, and in a FedEx Cup playoff event south of Chicago. Among other victors were stars Justin Thomas, Daniel Berger, Webb Simpson, Sergio Garcia, Patrick Cantlay and Viktor Hovland.

And there was world No. 1 Dustin Johnson, who won the FedEx Cup and his 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th Tour titles, the most recent coming with a green jacket. He also tied for second in the PGA Championship, lost in a playoff to Rahm in the BMW Championship, tied for second in Houston and tied for sixth in the U.S. Open.

U.S. Open - Final Round
Bryson DeChambeau celebrates on the 18th green after winning the U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York. (Photo: Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

There were other silver linings to find among the dark clouds that mark 2020.

Front-row seats at the Masters, where one literally could get within 10 feet of Tiger Woods teeing off on the 12th at the heart of Amen Corner. Needing just five minutes to get to Augusta National when the same drive would have taken 20-30 minutes in 2019. Seeing a squirrel for the first time at the Masters and discovering stairs on the left side of the 16th that lead to the sixth tee.

Driving in San Francisco, LA, Chicago and Atlanta was an applauded breeze. The safest places I encountered were the airports and planes and rental cars, all of them as clean as I’ve ever seen. Playing slots in Las Vegas wearing a mask and hitting my first royal flush without needing a wild card made the next day’s work at TPC Summerlin that much more enjoyable.

And testing negative four times and staying healthy – knock on a 3-wood.

Turns out 2020 wasn’t all bad – it just seemed that way at times. Still, the calendar flipping to 2021 can’t come soon enough and with it, hope that the new year will be drastically different. One where I can see and hear earsplitting galleries, especially at the Masters and Ryder Cup. Head over the pond to the Open Championship. Experience traffic jams en route to the golf course, do walk-and-talks with players inside the ropes again. See high-fives and handshakes. Continue to marvel at the stellar golf in front of me.

Crowded scrums and packed media centers would be welcomed. Players signing autographs and posing for selfies again would be nice. Bellying up to a bar – indoors – and crushing a meal – indoors – would be nicely greeted.

And yes, seeing rows and rows and rows of cars in the economy parking lots at airports would be a cheered view leading to a smile.

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