Bringing Back Golf: The equipment game has radically changed with COVID-19

With changes to PGA Tour protocols, club reps and repair teams needed to change how they operate. Check out the second part of our series.

It’s a whole new world for club manufacturers, who in the past have used their on-site trailers as “a mobile locker room.” Part 2 of our series Bringing Golf Back focuses on the equipment that pro players use.

With changes to PGA Tour protocols, club reps and repair teams needed to change the way they do business. Watch as a number of reps talk with Golfweek and USA TODAY Sports to discuss the new normal when it comes to dealing with players’ club needs on Tour.

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Click here if you missed Part 1, which discussed the focus players needed to maintain during the break.

Golfweek Rewind: Webb Simpson wins RBC, first positive COVID-19 test on Tour

The RBC Heritage produces the first positive COVID-19 test and Tiger Woods is out next week. Here are the week’s top stories.

Someone tests positive for COVID-19 at the RBC Heritage, Tiger Woods is out for the Travelers Championship and one Tour player works with his local golf club to help those on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.

Take a look at the week’s top stories on the latest episode of Golfweek Rewind featured below.

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Simpson wins at Harbour Town

It was a Happy Father’s Day for father-of-five Webb Simpson who shot an RBC Heritage record 22-under 262 to win Sunday at Harbour Town Golf Links. After a nearly three-hour weather delay, Simpson made five birdies in six holes on the back nine to finally break out of a bottleneck for first and claim the sole lead with a birdie on 16. He rattled off one final birdie on 17 to earn his seventh Tour title with a bogey-free 7-under 64.

COVID-19 on Tour

Nick Watney withdrew from the RBC Heritage Friday prior to the second round after testing positive for COVID-19. Wantey, who tested negative earlier in the week along with all other players, caddies and essential personnel, and will self isolate for at least 10 days following his positive test result. He is the first PGA Tour player to test positive for the coronavirus after the season resumed.

No Tiger at Travelers

Steve DiMeglio reports Tiger Woods will not play at the Travelers Championship. Woods last competed during The Match: Champions for Charity but hasn’t competed in a Tour event since The Genesis Invitational in mid-February.

For more on when the LPGA will resume, USGA exemption categories for the U.S. Amateur and Women’s Amateur and why Ernie Els is our Hero of the Week, watch the latest edition of Golfweek Rewind featured above.

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Memorial Tournament is only PGA Tour event until at least mid-August to have fans

The Memorial Tournament is the first major sporting event to allow fans back during the coronavirus pandemic. Organizers will be watched.

When the Memorial Tournament tees off July 16, the PGA Tour players will face less pressure to perform than tournament director Dan Sullivan and his team of organizers will.

Welcoming spectators onto the grounds of Muirfield Village Golf Club for the July 16-19 tournament carries risk. Not just for fans, who will be the first to attend a tour event since the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of the Players Championship after the first round on March 12.

Not just for tour pros, who will have had no interaction with fans over the past five tournaments. (Load up on hand sanitizer, boys.)

But the Memorial’s reputation also is at risk, especially among those who question why fans will be allowed in when other tournaments, both before and after, are keeping them out.

Which of these tour events does not belong with the others:

    • Colonial: No fans
    • RBC Heritage: No fans
    • Travelers: No fans
    • Rocket Mortgage: No fans
    • Workday Charity Open: No fans
    • Memorial: Fans
    • 3M: No fans
    • PGA Championship: No fans

The WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational and Barracuda Classic could have fans in late July/early August, but spectator status remains unclear, making the Memorial the only event until at least mid-August guaranteed to have boots and flip-flops on the ground.

With that comes both opportunity and gamble. Or as Sullivan puts it: “Pressure and responsibility.”

Tiger Woods at the 2019 Memorial at Muirfield Village. (Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports)

“Everyone is going to be watching,” Sullivan said this week. “We’re going to have a bunch of people coming here to pay attention to how we manage crowds getting around a golf course. Everyone on air is going to be talking about it. Everyone in print is going to be talking about it. And if we don’t do it right we can’t be 100 percent right but if we don’t do it right and have the right process in place then it may ruin it for others.”

Obviously, Sullivan sees it as a risk worth taking. Or at least Jack Nicklaus does. After all, the Memorial is Jack’s baby. Having grown up in Upper Arlington before moving to south Florida almost 50 years ago, the Golden Bear still has affection for Columbus, and undoubtedly wants to gift Ohio’s golf fans with actual in-person viewing. And the tour smartly likes to respect Jack’s wishes.

As a player, Nicklaus was not a big risk-taker. He and Tiger Woods rank 1-2 (or 2-1, if you prefer to get tossed out of Columbus) in thinking their way around 18 holes.

But Jack as tournament host is a different animal. Conducting the Memorial with spectators in the midst of a pandemic is like going for a 575-yard par-5 in two with a pond fronting the green. It can be done, but you better execute the shot perfectly.

Sullivan already noted that perfection is not possible, so he’s going to need a lucky bounce or two to pull things off without getting penalized too severely. In his favor, he will get some practice the week before the Memorial when Muirfield Village hosts the Workday Charity Open, which was a late add to the tour schedule as a replacement for the canceled John Deere Classic, which was to be held July 9-12 in Silvis, Illinois.

But Workday won’t have spectators, so what Sullivan can glean from it will be limited to testing and processing the “competition bubble” of about 450 players, caddies and tour personnel on site.

More on the Workday one-time event, which is expected to move to San Francisco next year: 156 players will compete for a purse of $6.2 million in what Sullivan described as a “strong Korn Ferry event.” In other words, few big names outside the potential for a marquee players such as Phil Mickelson and/or Brandt Snedeker, who have endorsement deals with Workday. (Aside: Workday is contributing $1 million to Nationwide Children’s Hospital and also must pay a site fee to Muirfield Village; John Deere reportedly also is chipping in some money.)

Patrick Cantlay reacts after making a par putt during the final round of The Memorial Tournament at the 2019 Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. ( Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)

Sullivan stressed that the Memorial very much is the main event, but that doesn’t mean it will resemble the previous 44.

“None of us have ever experienced this. We have no clue what is going to happen, but it will be presumably less energy and very controlled,” Sullivan said.

Spectators must wear masks upon entry and will be reminded once inside the gates that masks should be removed only around family. Attendance will be limited to about 8,000 (tickets are sold out but a waiting list exists; call the course at 614-889-6700), but the maximum on each hole ranges from about 200 at No. 11 to 1,500 at No. 18. So pick a hole and get there early.

“Think Sunday afternoon, about what happens (with huge crowds) around 18. It can’t happen this year,” Sullivan said.

But fans will happen, which ups the ante. With no mulligan. Hope it clears the water.

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No fans? Says who? Charles Schwab Challenge fans get creative with Wrigley-like bleachers

Neighbors to Colonial Country Club have built temporary seating to watch the PGA Tour event, making them the first fans of sports’ return.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Sean Henggeler and his buddies were wheeling around in a souped-up golf cart on Saturday morning, preparing for the third round of the Charles Schwab Challenge like they do every spring.

Even with steamy conditions — temperatures in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex are expected to approach 100 degrees for Sunday’s final round — there was all the frivolity and enthusiasm of a major college football tailgate as the trio sped back and forth in anticipation.

Henggeler, Michael Buster and Brett Sandstrom are breaking ground this week, and they know it — they’re among the first “live” fans of a major sporting event since the pandemic took hold.

In compliance with COVID-19 protocols, the PGA Tour isn’t allowing fans on the hallowed grounds of Colonial Country Club.

But just outside and above it? That’s a different matter.

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When Henggeler’s father, Pat, heard they wouldn’t be able to attend the tournament, he put the family to work, knowing their property sits behind a parking lot that’s adjacent to the No. 15 green and No. 16 tee.

“With corona and everything, we couldn’t go, so we said we wanted to bring the fans over here and still let them watch golf,” Sean Henggeler said. “(My parents) just decided to do it.”

The grandstands, which rise high above the family’s backyard fence, took two days to construct and cost “a few thousand dollars,” according to the family.

“We had people out here climbing around all day, putting this thing together,” Sean Henggeler said.

The final result is a Wrigley rooftop-like experience, complete with a live announcer, full bar, TV screens to capture all the action, port-a-potties, and even a charity collection for the nearby Colonial of Kids CASA organization, which typically fundraises during the event with a lemonade stand near the club’s entrance.

A handful of other platforms have popped up outside the course, although the Henggelers’ might be the most elaborate.

Buster, a longtime family friend, was ecstatic when he caught wind of the plan.

“I told them I’m going to be over the whole week. I will not be leaving here,” he said. “It’s electric. It’s a party. Especially when the guy’s on the mic introducing the players, it doesn’t get any better than that.”

Wait, what? Guy on the mic? At a professional golf tournament?

That’s right, the Henggelers even pulled a karaoke-style microphone setup onto the grandstand, complete with a speaker that booms over the adjacent parking lot and onto the course.

The players, who might typically be annoyed by such distractions, seem to be getting a kick out of it. The silence has been palpable at Colonial and Tour players are welcoming a chance to interact with the small group as they turn down the course’s backstretch.


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When Bryson DeChambeau, who has added 40 pounds of muscle the past eight months, came through to the No. 16 tee during the second round, the Henggelers’ announcer introduced him as “weighing in at 350 pounds.”

DeChambeau waved, appreciatively.

“I thought it was amazing what they did, saying I was coming in at 300 or whatever pounds — that was funny,” DeChambeau told the media after his 65 on Friday. “I really enjoyed that. It’s fun to have people rooting for you every once in a while out there. We don’t get that very much right now.”

Friday’s action brought about 100 people to the temporary seating, all of whom tried to obey the rules of social distancing. It’s worth any hassle, if it means resuming a tradition that many thought would be interrupted by the pandemic.

“Colonial’s the biggest thing we do, other than the rodeo. We’ve been doing this for many, many years, but usually, we’re out there,” Sandstrom said. “And we want to be out there so bad. But when this went up it was like, ‘OK, we’re still good. We still can get out here and do this.’ It’s special.”

Expectations for Sunday are a little lighter as Henggeler said many like to watch the final round from home. But because of the overwhelming response, would the family consider building a similar structure every year?

“No, we won’t do this in the future, in upcoming years,” Henggeler said. “We don’t want to compete with their tickets.”

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Ryan Palmer was a ‘little nervous’ hitting PGA Tour’s first shot back

Ryan Palmer, a member at Colonial Country Club, admitted to excitement and nerves after hitting the first shot of the PGA Tour restart.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Ryan Palmer stood on the first tee box at Colonial Country Club on Thursday — something he’s done thousands of times in the past as a member of the storied club — and the nerves crept in.

The results, however, didn’t show it. Palmer ripped a 297-yard drive down the left side of the 568-yard par-5 to open the Charles Schwab Challenge, the official return of the PGA Tour 91 days after the Players Championship was halted one round in.

Palmer said on Thursday he was honored to be the one to handle that assignment.

“I was a little nervous, obviously, but very exciting. I’m honored that they asked me to do it. I’m proud to be a member of this great club in Fort Worth, Colonial, and I’m pretty honored to be asked to hit the first shot for the return to golf for sure,” Palmer said. “Not the day I wanted, but overall some good things happened out there today. Yeah, I was a little nervous obviously going to hit that first shot and hit it good, but it was a great feeling to be that person.”


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Like Palmer said, while the beginning of Thursday’s round went smoothly, things turned somewhere near the 9 a.m. CT point. After posting birdies on Nos. 2, 6 and 7, Palmer finished the front with a pair of bogeys to make the turn at 34.

Things got worse on the back. After a bogey on No. 10, he pushed a drive on No. 16 out of bounds and wound up with a double-bogey. Palmer, who had been picked by many as a pre-tournament sleeper to contend, finished the opening round with an unimpressive 72.

Palmer lives in nearby Colleyville, has been a member of Colonial since 2010, and his long-time caddie, good friend James Edmondson, has been a Colonial member since 2005. Edmondson lives just 22 minutes away in North Richland Hills.

When Palmer had his birdie putts rolling in early, and got no reaction to the lack of fans, he said he almost had to manufacture the support.

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“You hit a putt and it goes in, and you’re talking to yourself, making the crowd noise yourself, I guess,” Palmer said. “It was a little different because I’m used to having a lot of friends and family out watching, so that was obviously different. But it was nice to get off to a good start like that. Making putts, you don’t hear much from it, so a little different. But it was just great to be out there playing.”

As for the lengthy break, Palmer said it made Thursday’s opening round akin to a winter tournament. Palmer was paired with Bill Haas and Brian Harman, and the latter fired a 65 to get near the top of the leaderboard.

“It felt like it was the Sony Open almost when you take November and December off and you have an off-season,” Palmer said of the Hawaiian tournament he won back in 2010. “It was an off-season we had during the season. So that’s kind of the feeling, I guess.”

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Jay Monahan on PGA Tour restart: ‘Everybody is watching’

Jay Monahan knows that the Charles Schwab Challenge is unlike any other event he’s reigned over as PGA Tour commissioner.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Jay Monahan knows that the Charles Schwab Challenge is unlike any other event he’s reigned over as PGA Tour commissioner. Although the TV crews are smaller than normal for this event at Colonial Country Club, the TV audience will likely be larger than ever as a sports-starved country looks to finally consume a live product.

Monahan met with the media in advance of the tournament’s first round and said he has leaned on leaders from the other major sports, who wanted to share their ideas about returning but will also certainly be watching the Tour’s progress to see any missteps they can avoid.

“I would just say that as an industry, there was a lot of collaboration between the leagues. I had a number of individual conversations with other commissioners,” Monahan said. “Really from the outset, really each league and its leadership was in an incredibly challenging position because our core competency is not preparing for a pandemic and having plans in place to respond to a pandemic.

“And so like us, every league was talking to medical experts, epidemiologists, companies in the healthcare space, local and state government officials, so invariably we were checking in on each other to understand where we were in our return and how we were thinking about that, issues that affect our return in terms of number of events played, for us number of events played relative to eligibility.”


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Of course, a meeting of the minds started this process as Monahan and LPGA commissioner Mike Whan were among the multitude of U.S. sports figures named to an advisory group by President Trump.

Monahan and Whan were on the committee along with the commissioners of the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL as well as the heads of UFC, NASCAR, WWE, USTA and WNBA, among others.

Monahan said these conversations netted some interesting ideas.

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“I was on a number of calls with all of the other league commissioners as part of the reopening of America task force and had a lot of individual conversations along the way, really in the past I’d say 30 to 45 days, more around testing and testing protocols and how we were handling it and learning more about how other sports are handling it,” he said.

“More importantly than me speaking to my peers at our leagues, the team that was leading our health and safety protocols is speaking to their counterparts at the leagues, sharing information, and one of the things I’m most proud of is that as an industry, this has pulled us together more so than almost any event because we were in a position where we were all away for a long period of time, we weren’t sure when we were going to come back, but we all knew what we had to address to come back, and then we all had different factors to lead into our ability to do so.”

So is Monahan worried to be the first one out of the gate? Or is he feeling extra pressure to produce a hiccup-free event? He said this week that he believes others are taking notes but also hoping to find a blueprint they can follow.

“Do we feel a responsibility? Absolutely. I think everybody is watching, Monahan said. “I’ve gotten a lot of nice emails and text messages of encouragement, and I think everyone wants to see this go off exceedingly well and for us to accomplish the same goal they have, which is a safe and healthy return, and to do it in a manner that is actually recognizing the challenges that this virus presents.”

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Memorial Tournament sells out of badges, fans required to wear masks

The Memorial Tournament sold out of badges for the July event and fans will be required to wear masks.

The Memorial Tournament announced Wednesday that it has sold out of its badge options for attending next month’s tournament.

Attendance is limited to 20% of its usual capacity because of safety protocols due to COVID-19. The Memorial will be the first PGA Tour event to allow spectators since the coronavirus pandemic brought a halt to almost all sporting events in March.

The Memorial was moved from this past weekend to the week of July 13-19 at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. The course also will hold an event without fans the week before.

Among the steps announced by the Memorial to promote safety are the following:

  • Before arrival, all badge-holders will be asked to take their temperature and review and answer six questions recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Anyone with a temperature 100 or higher or answering yes to any of the questions is asked to remain at home and seek medical advice.
  • Upon arrival, all staff, volunteers, competition community and fans will be asked the six CDC questions and be asked to leave and seek medical advice if answering yes to any of them. Each person’s temperature will be taken. If two tests register 100 or higher, that person will be asked to leave.
  • Non-surgical masks will be required upon entry for all attendees, other than those granted exemptions.
  • Designated one-way corridors will be established on the course with a predetermined number of attendees permitted at each hole. All bleachers have been eliminated for the tournament.
  • Sanitizers will be available and all concessions will be conducted with credit cards, not cash. All guests will park their own vehicles and walk to the course. There will not be general public shuttles for the tournament.

“Together with the PGA Tour, who we have worked jointly with throughout this process, we are looking forward to partnering with state, county and city leadership, along with the Memorial COVID-19 task force, to offer the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide as an example of how public gathering events can be developed and implemented with approved and accepted protocols in place,” tournament executive director Dan Sullivan said in a release.

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Thermal screens and no fans: PGA Tour golf is back but certainly different

While this week’s Charles Schwab Challenge gets PGA Tour players back in the swing of their daily work routines, it’s not business as usual.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Smartly seated in his plaid jacket, Kevin Na smiled and waited for the rest of the question. In what has become a standard ritual for Americans through recent months, the video conferencing system used by the PGA Tour was buffering, and Na, who won here 13 months ago to earn his jacket, was forced to politely wait until the connection with a reporter was restored.

“I think we’re losing you,” he said, his voice trailing off. “Want me to start again?”

Having a group of scribes asking the previous year’s tournament winner about their victory is hardly out of the ordinary. But having Na tell his stories virtually from one location at Colonial Country Club while a small group of reporters sits watching on computers from a quarantined space about 200 yards and a few walls away? Well, that’s unique.

The PGA Tour is the first major sport to return to action, but while this week’s Charles Schwab Challenge gets pro golfers back into the swing of their daily work routines, it’s hardly business as usual.


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There are no fans, no grandstands, and the traffic that would typically clog the neighborhood is almost non-existent. Volunteers and media members start the day by walking through an airport-like thermal screening system, and everyone who comes to the event is asked a series of COVID-19-related questions after having their temperature taken.

Golf is back, but it’s certainly different. And players like Na, who shot a 4-under 66 in the final round for a four-shot victory over Tony Finau in 2019, can sense it.

“This is very different for us. We’re not used to playing without fans. We’re used to — we’re more used to ropes, grandstands and fans down the ropes. The golf course looks empty. I mean, obviously, it is empty. It’s such a different look without grandstands and fans,” Na said on Wednesday, less than 24 hours from the beginning of his title defense. “I don’t know, I think the players are not going to be as pumped up in some situations because of that, because of the atmosphere, but I think once you tee it up and you’re focused, you’re still going to feel a little bit of the jitters and you’re still going to be so focused and into it you kind of forget about it.

“We’re disappointed there’s no fans, and we hope to get to have fans soon.”

Since announcing it would be the first sport to fully resume action, PGA Tour officials have insisted that a series of strict protocols would be put in place, keeping players and caddies as safe as possible.

Truth be told, while “the bubble” is in place, the Tour has only offered guidelines for players, and can’t readily enforce any action plan.

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For example, numerous Tour players and caddies were walking the streets of Fort Worth on Tuesday. And on the course, few masks were to be seen — mostly by volunteers. None of the players or caddies on-site were wearing masks and numerous members of law enforcement were also lacking PPEs.

“Yeah, social distancing is obviously important. But for me, the way I look at it, me and my caddie, I’m going to do the same things to my caddie that I’ve been doing my entire career. You look at any other sport, I’m pretty sure LeBron James isn’t going to worry about setting a pick when there’s contact about social distancing. Football, you’re not going to worry about tackling a guy because of social distancing,” Brooks Koepka said. “It’s just one of those things. Like my caddie has been at my house quite a bit. He’s staying with me this week, and I have no problem standing right next to my caddie. He’s been tested, I’ve been tested a couple times. It’s part of, I guess, the sport.”

The TV broadcast will be different, too, as CBS Sports and the Golf Channel are teaming up to help reduce the number of bodies on the course. World No. 1 Rory McIlroy said he hopes golf seizes this opportunity, not just to show fans that golf can be played and enjoyed safely, but all sports.

“I think this week is very important because golf will be the center of the sports world, which it usually a few weeks a year is, but for people to have something to watch on TV where they actually don’t know the outcome I think is going to be nice for them. So I think that’ll be a good thing,” McIlroy said. “And yeah, I think it’s an important week because golf can show that we can play in a socially distant manner. We can conduct a tournament and adhere to all the safety protocols that have been put in place.”

Nothing about this is easy, though. After months away from each other, players were eager to catch up, huddle together, swap stories and feel like the workday was typical. The bubble might be helping to protect the players, but as some have insisted, the players need to make sure they don’t let that bubble provide a false sense of security.

“… It is going to be very easy to fall back into old habits because it’s just what we’ve done. I’d say for the viewing public just to give the players and the caddies a little bit of leeway in terms of if they see something on TV that isn’t quite right. We’re having to figure it out as we go along, as well,” McIlroy said.

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Eamon Lynch: Golf is now a guinea pig, and its health is imperative

The PGA Tour is back and columnist Eamon Lynch says any COVID-19 setbacks could have catastrophic consequences throughout the sports world.

Much as we like to focus on personalities, the PGA Tour is really all about numbers posted: hole scores, round totals, cash earned, FedEx Cup points awarded, charitable dollars raised, eyeballs watching. All of those figures matter at this week’s Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, but they carry considerably less import as the Tour resumes action amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (Note: amid, not after, since cases are spiking across the country, not least in Texas.)

Instead, the number that matters most to the Tour at Colonial Country Club is zero.

Zero positive tests among players and caddies.

Zero drama.

If the Schwab Challenge were to be the most boring, uneventful 72 holes of his tenure as Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan would heave a sigh of relief.

The typical barometers of a good week on Tour — exciting finishes, superstar winners, scoring records — simply don’t matter as much. The yardstick being used in the coming days is much more daunting. Golf is a guinea pig for the greater sports world, and a misstep or health issue will have ramifications far beyond the Tour’s carefully-constructed resumption.

Fans will of course notice everything that is amiss at this most unusual of tournaments.

Rather than presiding from his traditional 18th hole tower, CBS’s Jim Nantz will plow a lonely furrow in front of a monitor in a remote building at Colonial. His sidekick in the booth, Nick Faldo, will chime in from a studio 1,100 miles away in Orlando.

The course will seem naked, stripped of the grandstands from which crafty players have long been accustomed to expect a fortuitous bounce or generous relief.

There will be no spectators, the very lifeblood of sport drained from the proceedings until at least the Memorial Tournament in July. (That’s not entirely bad, since it provides a respite from the smattering of meatheads whose hollering plagues too many telecasts).

The last time golf’s best player hit balls in such eerie silence in Fort Worth was when Hogan was practicing 15 minutes away at Shady Oaks.

World No. 1 Rory McIlroy heads the best field Colonial has ever hosted. The top five players in the world ranking are all here, and 16 of the top 20. There are 148 men in the field, 101 of whom have won on Tour, the kind of wheat-to-chaff ratio seldom seen outside the Seminole Pro-Member.

It’s almost enough to make one overlook those competitors who might have been better served watching from home.

Like Keith Clearwater, who won here two years before McIlroy was born. Now 60 years old, Clearwater still takes his spot each year as an ex-champion grandfathered into the field. He has made only seven Tour starts outside this event in the last 15 years. The last time he made a cut in any Tour event was 19 years ago, in 2001.

He’s not even the oldest guy in the field. Tom Lehman, 61, is here on the same senior pass 25 years after his victory. So too is Olin Browne, also 61 and the ’99 champ. And David Frost, the ’97 winner, who is just 10 days younger than Clearwater. All of them are younger than Bernhard Langer, who turns 63 this summer. He’s here alongside Scott McCarron (54) and Steve Stricker (53) as sponsor’s invites.

PGA Tour stop or Cocoon cast reunion?

None are taking a spot in the field from anyone else, to be fair. This is an invitational event, and a sponsor may do as it pleases with invitations. It’s entirely fair if Schwab wishes to invite winners of the Cup it generously finances on the senior circuit (Langer and McCarron in this instance). All of the aforementioned have earned the right to tee it up, though continuing to exercise that right might warrant reflection. If nothing else, we should at least commend this higher-risk demographic for heading back to work in a pandemic.

Everyone understands what will constitute a best-case scenario by the time we reach Sunday night in Fort Worth, and also the worst. A positive test among players, caddies or officials — all of whom traveled there, increasing their potential exposure — would fuel skeptics who think the Tour is taking unnecessary risks and rushing its resumption. No amount of testing or safety protocols will change those minds. And even a drama-free outing in Texas just shifts that onus to next week’s RBC Heritage in South Carolina, and beyond to Connecticut and Michigan.

In that respect, PGA Tour players — whether Rory McIlroy or Keith Clearwater — really are now just like the rest of us, reckoning with a macabre new reality that means having to assume a certain amount of health risk just to go about the humdrum tasks of our workdays. Having assumed that risk, everything else is up to fate. And not even Jay Monahan has sway over that.

Memorial Tournament can have fans, but will they come?

How will Memorial organizers deal with dozens of safety protocols that will test how badly fans want to show up to watch golf in person?

Muirfield Village is about to find out if its bunkers are made of quicksand.

The private golf club in Dublin got the go-ahead Friday to allow a limited number of fans to attend the Memorial Tournament on July 16-19, becoming the first PGA Tour event to be played with spectators since the coronavirus pandemic shut down most American sports, in mid-March.

A maximum of about 8,000 spectators will be permitted on the 18-hole course at any one time, according to a draft prepared by tournament organizers.

Getting clearance from the state of Ohio was essential, but also the easy part. Next up: navigating dozens of safety protocols that will test how badly fans want to show up to watch professional golf in person, and how long they remain on site.

Wearing masks for hours on end in potential 90-degree heat? Mandatory temperature readings before entering the course? Social distancing on the hillside around the 18th green? We are about to find out how well that works, as the Memorial becomes a guinea pig for golf and many outdoor sporting events.

Tournament director Dan Sullivan welcomes the opportunity to show how his event can provide leadership in becoming the first tour event with spectators since the first round of the Players Championship on March 12.

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“The Memorial is looking forward to … (becoming) an example of how public gathering events can be developed and implemented with approved and accepted protocols in place,” the tournament said in a release Friday, hours after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced a lifting of restrictions on specific large-group events, including the Memorial.

Sullivan said on Saturday that the tournament would begin announcing ticket plans in the next two weeks.

DeWine’s latest phasing out of restraints related to the COVID-19 pandemic takes effect in two weeks and also includes casinos, racinos, amusement parks, water parks and outdoor theaters, once they submit an activation plan. The overall ban on 11 or more remains in place, absent state approval.

A week before the Memorial, on July 9-12, Muirfield Village will host a new, one-time-only PGA Tour event that will be held without fans. The tour has not revealed the name of that tournament, but it will be sponsored by the software company Workday.

The new event will allow Memorial organizers to “test run” safety practices on tour players and members of the competition committee, including daily temperature checks and COVID-19 testing upon arrival and once during the week. Golfers at both events have the option of competing with or without masks.

Getting a head start on implementing safety measures on players, volunteers and staff is a big deal, but the bigger deal comes when fans show up for the Memorial.

The Memorial’s action plan, which undoubtedly will be massaged once Sullivan sees how the tour handles safety protocols at the five tournaments preceding the Memorial — all to be played without spectators — is impressive in its attention to detail. Its draft includes:

• Daily attendance reduced by one-half to one-third of normal. The Memorial typically does not release crowd figures, but the 8,000 estimate represents about 20% of maximum capacity.

• Each hole will include designated sitting or standing corrals, through which a predetermined number of spectators will be permitted. Each corral will be marked with a maximum number of fans and will be monitored.

• Nonsurgical masks will be required upon entry for all attendees, with exempted exceptions recognized. Temperature readings will be conducted at all entrances and to all those on the property through handheld units and thermal temperature readers.

• There will be no on-site bleachers.

• Players will be advised to not interact with fans.

• All general public shuttle transport will be eliminated.

• Media will be limited to 25% of typical attendance, and there will be a 50% reduction in CBS and the Golf Channel’s on-site crew.

It remains to be seen how placing restrictions on spectators will impact both interest in attending and attitude toward what transpires on the course. No one knows for certain, but Memorial organizers believe they will be as prepared as possible.

Rob Oller is a columnist for the Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network. Email him at roller@dispatch.com and follow him on Twitter: @rollerCD

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