Charles Schwab chairman Rob Hood on this week’s event: ‘Had to start from scratch’

Golf will resume this week at the Charles Schwab Challenge — the first PGA Tour event since the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

The bubble is in place. The COVID-19 tests are ready.

Golf will resume this week, in earnest, as players arrive at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, for the Charles Schwab Challenge — the first PGA Tour event since the coronavirus pandemic took hold mid-March.

How will tournament organizers handle this week’s proceedings, which will be unlike any other in the history of the Tour?

Very carefully, according to Charles Schwab Challenge tournament chairman Rob Hood, who has spoken with numerous media outlets in the days leading up to the event. He and tournament director Michael Tothe have been repeating a similar script, insisting that the Tour’s testing and limitation protocols will keep everyone on site at minimum risk.

When asked if there’s a specific number of people that, if tested to be positive for COVID-19, could shut down the tournament, Hood told the crew on Golf Channel’s Morning Drive that he wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know the specific headcount at this point but there are a lot of procedures in place,” Hood said. “Everyone who comes on to property will have to be thermal screened and checked off the list. We basically have two groups of people — those that have been tested and those who have not been tested.

“The ones that are tested, of course, will be the people that are in close proximity to the players but everyone who comes on the property will be thermal screened and have to answer a list of questions, and then checked off so we know everyone who is on the golf course and we know that they’ve all been cleared.”

Since the PGA Tour shut down March 12 after the first round of the Players Championship due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tour officials, other players, tournament directors and health experts developed a plan for the resumption of play at Colonial Country Club.

That 37-page plan details safety and health rules and guidelines for the return, including layered testing protocols and social distancing standards. Its objective is to create a safety bubble to limit as much risk as possible.

Hood said the membership at the prestigious Colonial Country Club and the entire Dallas-Fort Worth golf community have been understanding in the need to keep players isolated. That means no access for some who often pay top dollar to be given access.

“We’re ready to go,” Hood said. “I’m looking out the window now and everybody is just working hard and just excited to get started.

“We have to make sure that their health and their safety is our No. 1 priority and the membership gets it. They get it. We really had to start from scratch here.”

The field at the Schwab is the best in its history as 101 of the players have won on the PGA Tour, the most winners in a field outside of the Players Championship during the FedEx Cup era. All of the world’s top 5 will be on hand, the first time a tournament field can boast that since the Official World Ranking began in 1986.

The Charles Schwab Challenge is the first PGA Tour event since the Players Championship, which was canceled March 13 after the first round. Eleven tournaments with more than $90 million in purse money have been canceled.

 

Coronavirus golf: Slower pace, fewer carts impacting courses’ profitability

Golf courses have taken damaging financial hits in the era of coronavirus.

Although golf courses in many regions were allowed to partially operate for much of the pandemic-challenged spring, they’ve still taken damaging financial hits in the era of coronavirus.

“Using the analogy of a Buffalo Bills ticket, if they say they can have only 50% capacity in the stadium for a game, there’s no way to make that up,” said Mike Roeder, the general manager at Ravenwood Golf Club in Victor, NY, just outside Rochester. “Once a game is gone, it’s gone. Once you lose a booking, even if they rebook, it’s probably on a day when you could have booked something else.”

As New York state slowly reopens behind many other states, the Rochester-area facilities are holding out hope that enough restrictions will be lifted to allow them to at least get close to full functionality, meaning the opening in some form of their merchandise shops and restaurant/bar/banquet facilities.

Roeder said Ravenwood had 19 events canceled in March; 24 in April; and 25 in May — everything from golf outings, baby showers and retirement parties to larger gatherings such as school banquets, proms and weddings.

Looking ahead to June and the rest of the golf season, unless the state relaxes its regulations on the size of groups congregating, more cancellations are likely on the horizon at Ravenwood and everywhere else. Courses in other states are dealing with similar issues.

“All the weddings have been canceled,” said Jim Edmister, the head golf pro at The Golf Club at Blue Heron Hills, which is located in nearby Macedon. “They can’t take that chance of putting their money down and then you get down to it and they can’t have it.”

All of which is creating a backlog because in many cases, weddings are being rebooked for the following year. Customers may stay at the same place, but as Roeder pointed out, “they’re taking our dates for next year, which we would have sold to somebody else. That’s just business that’s lost that you’ll never get back. And while you’re saving on some labor and food costs, you’re losing revenue. If we can get to 50% of our original budget for 2020, we’d consider that a victory.”

Clearly, the food and beverage end of the golf business is suffering, but so, too, is the actual playing of the game.

Edmister said Blue Heron Hills had a flurry of early play in March thanks to unusually cooperative weather, and when the one-week, state-mandated shutdown of golf facilities was lifted in early April, the golfers were back out playing, but certainly not at the numbers you’d typically see. Courses in southern states had the luxury of a few playing months before the pandemic started, but most northern courses weren’t as fortunate.

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Continued guidelines on social distancing, the prohibition of cart use, which has only recently been lifted in NY— along with the fact that some people simply aren’t comfortable leaving their homes yet — have cut deeply into the bottom line.

“The PGA of America is recommending 10- to 15-minute intervals for tee times,” Edmister said. “That hurts you at the end of the day when you might have 80 tee times and now you’re down to 40.”

Not that he can handle too much more because with only 52 carts at his disposal and the one-rider rule still in place (unless two people are family members or have been quarantined together), Edmister can’t book too many more tee times.

Dave Eaton, the assistant executive director of the Rochester District Golf Association, said this same issue is universal to its member clubs. And the lost cart revenue, on top of everything else, has been detrimental.

“Carts weren’t even allowed for golfers with disabilities at first, although that came later,” Eaton said. “Eventually, these restrictions were loosened enough to allow for disabled golfers to ride. Finally, with (the) Phase I reopening for the Finger Lakes region, we received word that single-rider carts were once again allowed and that pro shops could open just to take payment for greens fees and pre-order retail pickup.”

The RDGA has already canceled several early-season tournaments, and clubs around the region have had to follow suit, which is a major blow regardless of whether they were member events or outside events.

“Many of our member clubs rely on outside tournaments for additional income and many of these have been canceled, mostly due to the social aspect of these events,” said Eaton.

Edmister has tournaments still on the schedule for June and beyond, and he’s crossing his fingers they can go on as planned, hopefully without social distancing restrictions.

“Things are slow,”  he said. “It’s going to be a rough year. People aren’t playing — everybody is still nervous about getting too close to each other. Time will tell, but I’m planning on having a good rush come June and hopefully, we can knock it dead for the rest of the year. It’s a whole new normal, just like everything.”

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PGA Tour’s new world: What if you miss the cut? Kevin Kisner answers

Kisner said he expects players who miss the cut will stick around until after the tournament for the PGA Tour shuttle to the next event.

The bubble is being established — a multi-layered entry point for PGA Tour players, caddies, and others to enter into the Charles Schwab Invitational in June and subsequent events.

The Tour has also created a new system, using a charter plane to shuttle players and caddies from one tournament to the next.

But what happens to those who miss the cut and are done playing on Friday?

Kevin Kisner, who’s a co-chair of the Player Advisory Council, said there are no specific rules, but he expects players will be strongly encouraged to stick around until the shuttle leaves.

“Everybody’s advised us to social distance and that’s the number one goal in all of this is follow the CDC guidelines, and we should all be able to social distance,” Kisner said on the Golf Channel to host Todd Lewis. “So if you miss a cut, I would expect that either you’re going home or you’re going to wait for that charter on Monday and stay in the same town.”

Kisner, who plans on attending the opening event in Fort Worth, Texas, from June 8-14, said he expects concessions to be made for those who miss the cut.

“I’m sure you’ll be able to have access to continue to practice at the host site through the weekend,” Kisner said. “Guys miss cuts all the time and now with the coronavirus, everybody wants to know make sure how we handle it but guys are used to being able to handle that. I think they’ll stick around and stay until Monday.”

Kisner admitted he was a little uncomfortable at first with the thought of coming back as early as the Tour proposed. He says officials have put the players at ease, however, and he’s now eager to return.

“We’re all excited to return to golf. We’re excited to hopefully be the leaders of sports and doing it the healthiest and safest way,” Kisner said. “I thought as early as we started talking — about June — I thought it was aggressive.  As things have chilled out a little bit or flattened the curve, I think we have a pretty good timeframe on when we can return to work.

“The first take we did as player directors, with the new protocols, was a little bit tough to swallow at first, but as we work through it and we had a lot of experts in the field come in and help advise us, you know I felt more and more comfortable and finally we got to a place that we could present it to the guys on the PGA tour that all unanimously voted yes to get back to work.”

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After recent success, will golf thrive or struggle to survive in the age of coronavirus?

Golf’s two planets must work together to take advantage of its new-found position as one of the few athletic endeavors deemed COVID-OK.

The world of golf is made up of two planets: Planet Hollywood and Planet Humility.

Jay Karen, CEO of the National Golf Course Owners Association, once used that analogy at an industry conference and it’s apropos.

Planet Hollywood is everything we see on TV. It is Tiger Woods and major championships and sponsorship logos and $15 million bonus checks. It is The Match II, which attracted oodles of eyeballs to the sport on Sunday.

“We need that planet to be healthy because it provides a source of energy to our planet, which is aspiration and enthusiasm,” Karen says. “Our planet is 10 times as big as that planet when you add up the economic impact and dollars passing through 15,000+ courses.”

And so while matches with Tiger and Phil and Rory and Rickie grabbed headlines and the re-start of the PGA Tour, LPGA and European Tour seasons can’t come soon enough, it is Planet Humility – those people that make up the backbone of our game – that golfers should really be concerned about.

These are strange times living through a global pandemic. Suddenly, golf courses are packed in a way the industry hasn’t experienced since Tiger Woods was revolutionizing the game in the late 1990s and former PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem was predicting 50 million golfers by 2020.

Well, that didn’t happen, but golf has been given this new-found seal of approval highlighting its healthy aspects and its ability to provide safe recreation. As courses across the country re-open there is pent up demand among golfers to get out and play. Tee sheets are mostly filled and former golfers and those trying out the sport for the first time are emerging out of the woodwork desperate to be in the sunshine and doing something, anything that has been deemed “COVID OK.” There is renewed belief that golf can grab a bigger piece of the pie among recreational and entertainment options.

“This uptick in demand could have a more sustainable life than those that kicked the tires because Tiger’s a rock-star athlete,” Karen said. “People are coming to the game for the reasons that they end up staying for the longterm: to be outside, to recreate with friends, for enjoyment while social distancing. We want people to come to the reasons to keep playing into their 90s.”

But the golf industry can’t ignore the long road it has ahead of it. The pandemic simply exacerbates the existing battle for survival for many golf courses in a land rich, cash poor business.

“When cash flow gets turned off for a few months that is a serious existential concern for some businesses,” Karen said.

When asked in an April survey by Golf Now how long their course could go without green-fee revenue during golf season before their business “suffers irreparable damage,” 27% of 1,300 respondents said less than one month, 50% said from one to three months and the remaining 22% said they could go three months or longer.

The fear is that this unprecedented disruption of their day-to-day business due to state and city mandates arising from the coronavirus pandemic will accelerate the failure of businesses that had been fighting the good fight and hanging on by their fingernails. So far, we’re only seeing isolated cases of closings, but the City of Dayton’s decision to close 90 of its 108 municipal golf holes in the municipality’s portfolio, which according to the Dayton Daily News required a subsidy of an average of nearly $500,000 per year for the last four years, is disconcerting and could be indicative of a larger trend. After all, Industry analyst Jim Koppenhaver, president of research firm Pellucid Corp., concluded the city made the right call.

“Not the right call for golf, justice, and the American way but the right financial call for a city of their size, with budget issues and with COVID still the big unknown in operations, rounds, revenues and costs for ’20 and beyond,” he wrote in The Pellucid Perspective’s May issue.

Everyone mourns the loss of a golf course, but it has become an all too familiar story due to oversupply — Finchem’s 50 million golfers by the end of 2020 likely will be half that. According to the National Golf Foundation, golf course closings have outnumbered openings by a wide margin every year since 2006. With the loss of high-margin food and beverage sales, restrictions on cart use and membership rolls likely to take a hit with soaring unemployment rates, golf course operators can use all the rounds they can get; otherwise the figure for closings is likely to get worse.

“It’s a tightrope walk to keep the business alive, keep your people employed and keep the golf business from going into a depression and the other side of the rope is keeping your customers who need air, sunshine and want to be in an open space as safe as possible,” Karen said.

The golf industry rarely elicits sympathy and empathy from the rest of the world. This is the first piece of disaster-relief legislation since Hurricane Katrina that didn’t specifically exclude golf from qualifying for the disaster relief.

“That was a big step forward,” Karen said. “When the legislation is drafted, winners and losers are chosen and golf has for the last 15 years been in the ‘who doesn’t’ category. Federal support through PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) could be a lifeline for many courses.”

It was refreshing to see Planet Hollywood and Planet Humility join forces to triage the emergency and to sing the virtues of golf from the same songbook. That included issuing “Back2Golf,” a compilation of best practices into one set of guidelines.

The industry has rallied – and will need to continue to rally – to help its own. The PGA of America established the Golf Emergency Relief Fund to provide short-term financial assistance to industry workers facing financial hardships. The R&A announced a COVID-19 Support Fund, with a focus on helping “national associations and other affiliated bodies in Great Britain and Ireland.”

“The R&A Covid-19 Support Fund will enable national associations and other key bodies to provide support to some of their members,” Martin Slumbers, chief executive of the R&A, said. “We know that many challenges lie ahead but club golf is the bedrock of our sport and hopefully this fund will help to begin the process of recovery.”

The reality of Karen’s planet analogy is that both planets rely on each other for survival. Planet Hollywood needs the 24 million customers to keep playing golf to feed the lifelong nature of the fandom.

For the first time in a long time it feels as if the two planets in the golf universe are pulling together and orbiting in the same universe. It only took a global pandemic to do so.

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Golfweek Rewind: Live golf is back, PGA Tour details how to safely resume season

Top golf news recapped: Driving Relief was a huge success, the PGA Tour details how to safety return and the LPGA pushes back its restart.

Live golf is finally back, the Tour details how it will safely resume play and the LPGA pushes its season restart once again.

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

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Driving Relief

Live golf is back on TV. The team of Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson defeated Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff in TaylorMade Driving Relief, a charity match to benefit the COVID-19 relief effort at Seminole Golf Club. Next up is The Match: Champions for Charity at Medalist Golf Club this Sunday where Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson will be joined by Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.

Safe return

In a conference call and letter to Tour personnel, the PGA Tour outlined how it hopes to safely bring the game back in the era of COVID-19. Key points, players’ reactions and details on testing for Tour personnel can be found on our website.

LPGA pushes restart

The LPGA will not resume July 15-18 with the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational. The tour announced Friday the event was canceled, further pushing the tour’s return. The next event on the revised LPGA schedule is the Marathon LPGA Classic July 23-26 in Ohio.

For more news on the official hosts for the 2025 and 2030 PGA Championships and why a new mom is our Hero of the Week, watch the latest episode of Golfweek Rewind featured above.

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LPGA revises 2020 season restart, DOW Great Lakes Bay Invitational canceled

The LPGA planned to restart its 2020 season with the DOW Great Lakes Bay Invitational in July, but pushed back its restart once again.

In late April, the LPGA rescheduled its 2020 season restart from June to mid-July.

On Friday morning, the tour pushed its restart once again.

The Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational, previously scheduled to restart the LPGA season July 15-18, is now canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The event is expected to return to the LPGA schedule in 2021 at Midland Country Club in Midland, Michigan. The tour also announced Friday Dow agreed to a contract extension with the LPGA, ensuring that the Tour will return to the Great Lakes Bay region in the future.

MORE: Revised 2020 LPGA schedule

The next event on the revised LPGA schedule is the Marathon LPGA Classic July 23-26 at Highland Meadows Golf Club in Sylvania, Ohio, followed by the ShopRite LPGA Classic July 31–Aug. 2 at Sea View Dolce Hotel in Galloway, New Jersey.

As of Friday morning, Michigan had 49,582 confirmed cases, seventh-most in the United States, and 4,787 deaths due to coronavirus.

“While we are disappointed that the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational will not be held this year, I am excited that our friends at Dow have extended our relationship and will be hosting us in Midland for many years,” LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan said. “As I’ve said since this pandemic started, while we will do all we can to play safely in 2020, the most important thing is to ensure the long-term health of our Tour. We are very thankful to the team at Dow for their ongoing and extended support. The 2019 Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational was an incredible addition to our schedule, and I’m excited to see what they bring to the table in 2021.”

The LPGA said it will make further adjustments to the 2020 schedule if necessary.

When the LPGA last announced it pushed back the tour’s return to play, Whan said being the first tour to return to play “has never been the goal,” bur rather safety of players, personnel and sponsors was the priority.

The PGA Tour is expected to return to play June 11-14 with the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.

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Trump Golf properties have reopened in Los Angeles, Miami

Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, made the announcement on Monday.

Trump Golf properties in Los Angeles and Miami are open after previously closing due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Eric Trump, son of President Donald Trump and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, announced on Monday that Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles and Trump National Doral in Miami have both re-opened.

Trump National in Los Angeles re-opened Saturday, according to the club’s Twitter account.

“The courses are absolutely impeccable and our teams are waiting for you!” Eric wrote in part in a tweet.

Trump Doral temporarily laid off 560 workers in April after shutting down operations mid-March due to the threat of COVID-19. As of Tuesday morning, there were 41,923 confirmed cases and 1,779 deaths associated with the virus in the state of Florida, according to the USA TODAY.

Trump Doral is also the site the President once planned to host the 2020 Group of Seven Summit in June.

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World Golf Hall of Fame to reopen May 18 after closure due to COVID-19

The World Golf Hall of Fame closed temporarily due to coronavirus, but will reopen on May 18 with some precautions.

The World Golf Hall of Fame will offer several discounts upon its re-opening on May 18 after being closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The World Golf Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Augustine is reopening on May 18, with special rates for the entire summer for area residents, children, first responders and health-care workers.

Playing golf at First Coast courses will also earn a reduced rate.

The IMAX Theater will remain closed. The facility will allow 25 percent of museum capacity in at a given time and will follow all local, state and CDC guidelines.

The Hall of Fame will offer complimentary admission through Aug. 31 to all first responders and frontline health-care workers. Children 12 and under are also admitted free during that time period when accompanied by a ticketed adult (two children per adult) and Northeast Florida residents will get 50 percent off admission with a valid ID.

The Hall of Fame also is offering 50 percent off admissions through Aug. 31 for anyone bringing a receipt showing that they played a round of golf at a Northeast Florida Course. The round must have been played within three days of the visit to the Hall of Fame.

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Major changes planned for equipment makers as PGA Tour prepares to restart

PGA Tour reps will not be allowed on the course, in the clubhouse or on the range. There will be a new way of getting gear to players too.

Early in the week at any PGA Tour event, scores of people mingle on the range and around the practice green. Players, caddies, agents, media members and representatives from equipment makers chat and conduct the business of golf.

Drivers are adjusted, new putters are tried, training aids are demoed and stories are exchanged. However, like every other facet of life in America in the time of COVID-19, that will change when the PGA Tour resumes.

Golfweek has learned from multiple sources that the PGA Tour conducted a conference call with several manufacturers May 1. During the call, an outline was presented about how equipment makers will be able to operate at places such as Colonial Country Club, Harbour Town Golf Links and TPC River Highlands as the PGA Tour restarts its season in June.

PHOTOS: Irons used by top 10 PGA Tour players in strokes gained approach the green

In essence, a bubble will be created around the players at the Charles Schwab Challenge, the RBC Heritage and the Travelers Championship, and equipment reps will not be allowed inside it.

The technicians who ordinarily work closely with players are not going to be allowed on the practice range, in the clubhouse or on the course. The equipment reps will not be required to be tested for the coronavirus before they arrive at Tour venues, but no one will be allowed inside the equipment vans except that company’s representatives.

The PGA Tour’s vice president of communications, Joel Schuchmann, confirmed the Tour is planning to create distribution centers where anything that ordinarily would be exchanged between brands and players will go to be cleaned and sanitized.

For example, if a player wants a new driver, he will have to contact an on-site company representative and request it. The club technician will build the driver, but if he does not have the shaft or grip the player requests in the truck, he will need to contact that shaft or grip company’s rep and have it dropped off outside the truck because no one will be allowed in inside the manufacturer’s vans.

Ping and Cobra PGA Tour vans
No one but representatives from the company will be allowed in PGA Tour vans like these at the first tournaments. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

After the technician finishes building the club, he must take it to the distribution center, enter the area at one end and leave the club with a worker. The club will then be cleaned before the player enters the distribution center through a different entrance and retrieves it.

During the call, PGA Tour officials said each company would be allowed one equipment truck on site, which is typical, but each truck could be manned by only one technician and one other company representative. As with many aspects of the PGA Tour’s plans, that limiting of onsite reps may change because it was pointed out that getting things such as golf balls, gloves and accessories to dozens of players from large brands like Titleist, Callaway and TaylorMade could be challenging for just one person.

PHOTOS: Rory McIlroy’s TaylorMade equipment up close

Another organizational call with equipment makers, hosted by the PGA Tour, is planned this week.

“Everything is fluid at this point,” said Chris Tuten, Titleist’s vice president of Tour leadership. “The health and safety of our team members are of the utmost importance, and we are having daily internal discussions as to how we will approach it when that day comes. It would be premature for us to comment on how everything will work at this point, but we are in constant contact with the PGA Tour and hopefully we have a better idea later next week.”

Ben Schomin, Cobra Golf’s director of Tour operations, builds equipment for Rickie Fowler and Bryson DeChambeau. He was on the call May 1 with the PGA Tour and already has hotel rooms booked and plane tickets purchased to fly from his home in the San Diego area to Texas, South Carolina and Connecticut.

Asked how nervous he was about traveling and working at PGA Tour events again, his answer came quickly.

“Zero. Zero percent right now,” he said. “A hotel and a plane, right now, are probably far cleaner than any hospital that you could walk into.”

Like everyone else around the world, the pros and the PGA Tour reps who service them are being forced to adapt.

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Korean LPGA returns this week with top stars and no fans

The Korean LPGA will restart with the KLPGA Championship May 14-17. The event will be closed to spectators.

The Korean LPGA hits the restart button this week – with a major championship. The KLPGA Championship is set to take place May 14-17 north of Seoul at Lakewood Country Club in Yangju. The event will be closed to spectators.

The field includes several top-ranked players, including Sung Hyun Park (No. 3), Sei Young Kim (No. 6) and Jeongeun Lee6 (No. 10).

Former LPGA player Ha Na Jang (No. 31) and Hye Jin Choi are among the other top Korean stars. Both are past champions of the event.

This will be the first time Park, a former No. 1, has teed it up in 2020.

The KLPGA began its season in December of last year but has been on hold since due to the coronavirus.

Players and caddies will be asked complete a questionnaire before participating in the event, according to reports. In addition, players will have their temperatures checked before entering the course and be asked to social distance from their playing partners. They will also be asked to sanitize their clubs during the round. The entire field will not be tested for coronavirus due in large part to South Korea’s successful target-testing campaign that has slowed the spread.

Players and caddies will have a separate path to walk on the grounds and a separate temporary clubhouse. The main clubhouse will be open to members.

The field has been increased to 150 players (up six) and the purse has increased to $2.4 million (up about $520,000).

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