There are 10 President Cup golfers in the field and every one of them made the cut.
LAS VEGAS — There’s a heavy Presidents Cup contingent at the 2022 Shriners Children’s Open.
Members of the International squad are making the most noise so far, taking four of the top eight spots after 36 holes.
With that kind of early success, there may be a push to move the 2024 Presidents Cup from Montreal to TPC Summerlin.
Ok, not really, but there are 10 Cuppers (eight Internationals, two Americans) in the field, six of them are in the top 10 and every one of them advanced to the weekend.
Mito Pereira leads the way in Vegas. An 8-under 63 will do that, as he charged up the leaderboard in the afternoon wave Friday. He’s at 12 under and leads by two.
Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim are among four golfers tied for second at 10 under. Cam Davis is at 9 under, tied for sixth.
Sungjae Im, the defending champ in Vegas, shot 65-70 and is tied for 16th.
Taylor Pendrith and Christiaan Bezuidenhout as well as the two American President Cuppers, Max Homa and Patrick Cantlay, also made the weekend.
“We’re picking from the bottom of the barrel. It doesn’t actually make our product better. It makes it worse.”
NAPA, Calif. – Thanks to Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy (and Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson to some extent), change is coming to the PGA Tour.
While the best players have agreed to play against one another in a minimum of 20 events between January and August starting in 2024, the Tour’s nine official fall events are about to receive a demotion, beginning in 2023.
The top 70 in the FedEx Cup regular season points race will qualify for the playoffs and retain their cards for the next season. Numbers 71-125? They will have to duke it out during the fall to retain their playing privileges in what will essentially become eligibility events. Without FedEx Cup points at stake or any punishment for not playing during the fall, the top players have been given the option of an extended vacation from September through December. It’s the off-season some of them have long been asking for, but PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and his business development team have their work cut out explaining to title sponsors why fields will be watered down.
“The Tour knows this isn’t awesome for the sponsors of the fall events to tell them that the guys who finish top 70 don’t have to play your events and probably won’t,” said Tour veteran Peter Malnati, co-chairmen of the Player Advisory Council. “They say they are going to make them stronger and I’m just taking them at their word for now.”
Malnati said he spoke to Monahan at the RBC Heritage.
“He looked me right in the eyes and said these events are going to be stronger,” Malnati said.
Fall events have always been the red-headed stepchildren, airing exclusively on Golf Channel during a time of year when college football and the NFL rule the roost. That’s baked into the sponsorship price. But current sponsors, such as Fortinet, which this week drew five of the top 30 that made it to the Tour Championship including Hideki Matsuyama, have to be wondering whether that will ever happen again. What is the future of the fall events?
“I had that same question myself,” said Stewart Cink, a former PGA Tour policy board member. “It’s hard for them to thrive if they’re not getting top players. We’ve been down this road before. There’s a reason we went to the wrap-around schedule.”
A veteran Tour pro, who asked for anonymity, didn’t mince words, saying that the fall events are going to become a glorified Korn Ferry Tour Finals.
“The Tour’s top question to us is always would you rather not have an event? It’s a pretty fair question now because it might not be a good idea to have an event,” he said. “Some events are going to go so far down the (player priority) list that it’s going to be embarrassing. We’re picking from the bottom of the barrel. It doesn’t actually make our product better. It makes it worse.”
Webb Simpson, the other co-chairmen of the PAC, also expressed concern that the number of fall events could be impacted.
“I don’t know how far the Tour is going to go with the plan that Tiger and Rory proposed. I just don’t know. I hope they don’t go away,” he said of the fall events. “I love the opportunities to play.”
How many of the nine fall events would he likely play next year if he were to finish in the top 70?
“Probably two or three,” he said. “I don’t want to take four months off after Atlanta, not everybody does. Playing two or three still feels like downtime.”
One tournament director, who asked for anonymity, said purses likely will flatline and expected more tournaments to follow the RBC and Zurich model of signing top-ranked players as ambassadors in which part of the deal will require tournament participation.
“What I don’t want to see is us lose title sponsors. If we start to lose titles in certain cities, LIV is going to go in behind them,” said the tournament director, noting LIV already laid down roots in Boston, Chicago and NY/NJ metropolitan area, cities where the Tour no longer has annual events.
Both the Fortinet Championship and Cadence Bank Houston Open are rumored to be angling to move into the main portion of the schedule, but there may not be room for them. Could a Tour event jump ship to LIV?
“God, I hope not, but it could happen,” said the tournament director. “Tournaments now have another option.”
As the final year of the wraparound season kicks off, it’s worth noting that the fall events have factored into determining the FedEx Cup champion: Of the last six Cup winners, four have won a tournament in the fall portion of the season before going on to win the season-long race. (Most recently, Rory McIlroy won the CJ Cup last fall.)
Agents and their players are still waiting to understand exactly how the fall series events will work.
“I don’t think it’s a lack of transparency, I don’t think they know what they’re doing,” said an agent of multiple players. “They’re making decisions by the seat of their pants. You could ask 10 people out here from players to reps to agents what’s happening in the fall, and you’d get seven different answers. That’s not good.”
“I honestly don’t know,” said Kevin Streelman, a Tour board member from 2017-19 and who was added to the Player Advisory Council for the remained of the year in an August vote to replace a player that went to LIV Golf. “The storyline will be the top 125, but we’re going to have to do something to incentivize the top players to show up.”
Malnati is trusting that Monahan will be good to his word and that the fall events will find a way to be stronger.
“Change is never easy. It always feels difficult. A lot of times it works and it’s great but right now it’s a wait and see for me,” he said.
The PAC is increasing from 16 members to 17 for the rest of the year.
The PGA Tour Player Advisory Council is growing for the rest of the year.
On Monday the PGA Tour announced the additions of Max Homa, Brandt Snedeker, Keith Mitchell and Kevin Streelman to the Player Advisory Council (PAC) for the remainder of 2022. Homa and Snedeker will take the vacated places held previously by Brooks Koepka and Graeme McDowell, who joined the LIV Golf Invitational Series. Mitchell and Streelman tied in a separate election to fill the space vacated by Paul Casey, who also joined LIV Golf, and both players have been added to the PAC, which increased from 16 to 17 members.
Streelman served as PAC co-chairman in 2016 and then served a three-year term as a Player Director on the Policy Board from 2017-19. Homa, Snedeker and Mitchell will be PAC members for the first time.
Peter Malnati and Webb Simpson will start their three-year terms as Player Directors on the PGA Tour Policy Board next year, replacing James Hahn and Kevin Kisner. Last season’s PGA Tour Player of the Year Patrick Cantlay will also join the board in the 2023.
The PAC advises and consults with the PGA Tour Policy Board and commissioner Jay Monahan on issues affecting the Tour.
2022 Player Advisory Council
Patrick Cantlay (Player Director appointee 2023)
Austin Cook
Joel Dahmen
Harry Higgs
Max Homa
Billy Horschel
Russell Knox
Justin Lower
Peter Malnati (Co-Chairman)
Maverick McNealy
Keith Mitchell
Trey Mullinax
Jon Rahm
Webb Simpson (Co-Chairman)
Brandt Snedeker
Kevin Streelman
Will Zalatoris
The game’s best players are headed to TPC Potomac at Avenel Farms for the Wells Fargo Championship. If that sounds odd, it should, as the regular host venue, Quail Hollow Club, will stage the Presidents Cup later this year.
TPC Potomac hosted the Quicken Loans National in 2017 and 2018 but hasn’t been featured on Tour since.
Rory McIlroy is both the defending champion and betting favorite (+750). Last year’s triumph was McIlroy’s third Wells Fargo Championship victory, but here are a few sleepers for this week:
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In a surprisingly loaded field, here are some sleeper picks this week at the RBC Heritage.
It’s Masters hangover week, there’s no way around it. However, the field for this week’s RBC Heritage is loaded, especially considering where this event lands on the schedule.
Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Players champion Cameron Smith and Jordan Spieth are just some of the names who have made the short trip from Augusta, Georgia to Hilton Head, South Carolina to take on the Pete Dye-designed Harbour Town Golf Links.
It’s the third consecutive year the tournament has had five or more top-10 players in the field. Not once in the in the previous 18 years did the tournament have five or more top-10 players.
Thomas is the betting favorite at +1200, followed closely by the 2021 Champion Golfer of theYear Morikawa, who is available at +1300.
Further down the odds list, however, there are some big names who offer great value. Let’s start with Tommy lad.
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“I don’t think the game was meant to be broken down that scientifically.”
Rest in peace, green-reading books.
At least, that is for tournament use on the PGA Tour. These pocket-sized books featuring highly detailed illustrations and in use on the Tour since 2008, join the likes of George Orwell’s 1984, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye among famous banned books.
Unlike those once-controversial literary classics, the green-reading books helped players to detect the directions that putts break and the percentage of slope in different sections of greens. The ban became official on January 1 and goes into effect Thursday at this week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions.
Tour veteran Kevin Streelman, who used the books religiously for the past several years, was a member of the Tour’s 16-member Player Advisory Council that voted unanimously in May that the books had to go. He explained why the move was initiated by the players, noting he didn’t like the optics on TV of seeing the noses of players buried in the books as they determined the break of a putt.
“I think green reading is a skill of the game,” he said. “It’s some pretty cool technology that probably jumped up on us quickly and everyone thought it was time to rein it in.”
“It got out of control for a while,” said Davis Love III. “At the 2016 Ryder Cup, you had people sneaking around with machines and shooting the pins and putting them on 8×12 paper. It’s just a little too much technology. Yes, there’s technology involved in just about everything: rangefinders, GPS, scorekeeping, and all that kind of stuff. But we need to be careful that it doesn’t become a computer game out here.”
The pushback began in 2018 when the USGA limited the size of the books to 4½ x 7 inches, to the scale that 3/8-inch on the book would correspond to five yards on the green. That legislation was deemed by several top players to be too soft. The purpose behind restricting the green-reading books is to ensure that players and caddies use only their eyes and feel to help them read the line of play on the putting green. Critics say the books offered too much assistance. Or as former World No. 1 Luke Donald put it, “We shouldn’t be given a book with all the answers.”
“It’s not that it’s an advantage really, it’s just taking away a skill that takes time and practice to be mastered,” said Rory McIlroy, president of the PAC, at the U.S. Open in June. “I think reading greens is a real skill that some people are better at than others, and it just nullifies that advantage that people have.
“Honestly, I think it’s made everyone lazier. People don’t put in the time to prepare the way they used to.”
Rory McIlroy looks over his yardage book on the fifth green during the second round of the Tour Championship golf tournament at East Lake Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Butch Dill-USA TODAY Sports
But they will now, and so will their caddies. Scott Sajtinac, who currently works with Brandt Snedeker, estimated he’ll be spending anywhere from 5 to 10 more hours per week on the greens rolling balls to gather as much detail on the putting surfaces without using electronic equipment (no levels or measuring devices are allowed). Expect to see a rise in players and caddies using the AimPoint method of green-reading.
The local rule gives the Tour the ability to establish an officially approved yardage book at each tournament so that the diagrams of putting greens show only minimal detail (such as significant slopes, tiers, or false edges that indicate sections of greens). In addition, the local rule limits the handwritten notes that players and caddies are allowed to add to the approved yardage book.
“Am I happy it is going away? Yes,” said Matt Kuchar. “I think it is good for the game for them to go away. I don’t think the game was meant to be broken down that scientifically.”
Justin Rose, who tends to be more the scientist than the artist, noted that he has won an equal number of tournaments with the green-reading book as he has without it and doesn’t expect that his inability to have the information handy will make a big difference.
“I don’t rely on it. I used it as a quick guide,” he said, adding “there are ways for me to still use it and the concepts and strategies without it. I will still use it in my preparation in my hotel room.”
Jordan Spieth, who is known as one of the deadliest putters on Tour, had become a devout user of the books in recent years yet he, too, was among the PAC members who voted for the ban. Speaking ahead of the Sentry Tournament of Champions, he said that he wasn’t too concerned about losing access to what had become a security blanket of sorts on the greens, noting that Augusta National Golf Club didn’t allow them and he had a pretty good track record there, including a green jacket from 2015.
Jordan Spieth looks over his yardage book on the first green during the final round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Torrey Pines Golf Course. Mandatory Credit: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports
“I seem to find myself in a really good space on the greens there, really feeling putts,” he said. “I’m one that’s used (green books) because why wouldn’t you use ’em? More for a reference point and a lot of times more for speed than trying to dial in an AimPoint situation or a line, so I’m perfectly fine with the changes.
“I think that to me, putting you have to read it right, you have to put a stroke on it and you have to hit it with the right speed. I thought with the green reading materials it took one of those three skills away from it and I think that it’s a skill that I would say is an advantage of mine and so I’m excited to see what it can mean as far as strokes gained compared to the field on the greens.”
Talor Gooch, who won the RSM Classic, the last event on the Tour where the books were allowed, used a green-reading book en route to his first victory but said he was glad to see them be gone.
“It sways me away from my instincts and my skill set,” he said. “It will be nice to not have almost another voice in my head and I think it will free me up.”
Steve DiMeglio contributed reporting to this story.
Cameron Davis’s name was probably never mentioned in discussions about potential winners, but he has a share of the Northern Trust lead.
NORTON, Mass. – The NBA Playoffs started this week, and in the opening game of their series against the Los Angeles Lakers, the eighth-seed Portland Trailblazers upset the Western Division’s top-seeded team. The Orlando Magic, another 8-seed, defeated the Eastern Division’s top team, the Milwaukee Bucks.
Like Lakers and Bucks fans, golf lovers probably assumed that one of the top-ranked players this week at TPC Boston would take command early at the Northern Trust. Justin Thomas tops the FedEx Cup point list and is ranked No. 2 in the world. Collin Morikawa arrived in Norton, Massachusetts, ranked second in FedEx Cup points thanks to winning the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park two weeks ago. Maybe Rory McIlroy, he’s won twice on this course.
Cameron Davis’s name was probably never mentioned in discussions about potential winners. Andy why should it be? Entering this week, he was 203rd on the Official World Golf Ranking, No. 91 on the FedEx Cup point list and he’s missed the cut in four of the seven PGA Tour events he has played since the Tour’s restart. But on a New England morning that was so beautiful James Taylor probably wrote a song about it, Davis, 25, lit up TPC Boston. He carded eight birdies en route to a 64 and a share of the first-round lead.
“My swing was a little sloppy, and I wasn’t hitting the ball very solid on the range,” Davis said Thursday evening. “The start to this back nine, which is where I started my round, is very strong, and (I) hit a lot of good quality shots. I feel really proud of the way I dug in.”
Davis is joined by other players who did not get a lot of attention heading into the week: Harris English and Kevin Streelman.
“It helps when the greens are soft,” said English, who was a standout at the University of Georgia. “Five-iron into No. 11, then a really good shot, a 5-iron, at No. 12. (On) 13 I hit 8-iron and 14 I hit 7-iron. A lot of mid-irons, a lot of long irons and I feel like you’ve got to hit those clubs well. I felt like my iron game was on point.”
That’s one way to describe it. English hit 15 of 18 greens in regulation and finished the day ranked No. 1 in proximity to the hole and second in strokes gained approach the green, a stat that measures how much of an edge a player has on the field based on his iron game.
“I don’t swing it like everybody else, and other people don’t swing it like I do,” English said after being asked about switching coaches and searching for a better move. “I can’t look at how Rory swings it, how Dustin swings it, how Brooks swings it. I mean, everybody is different, and I’ve begun to realize that.”
Streelman, 41, came into the week ranked No. 22 in FedEx Cup points. He has two runner-up finishes this season but hasn’t won a PGA Tour event since the 2014 Travelers Championship. A strong showing here could put him in a position to reach his first Tour Championship since 2013.
“(I) just kind of did what I was supposed to today, and you’ve got to keep pushing,” Streelman said. “I think the wind is not going to be a major factor this weekend. The weather looks beautiful. The course in perfect shape. I’m excited to get out in the morning with even better greens than we had today.”
Another Georgia Bulldog who had a great day was two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson, who shot 65 in the afternoon wave.
“The problem that I’ve had over the last year or so is the mental part, the thinking,” Watson said. “I’ve been trying to work on that a little bit. I knew my ballstriking was in the right spot. We’ve got three more days, so I could shoot 102 tomorrow, but right now, I’m hitting the driver really nicely. I’ve got an old (Ping) B60 (putter) in the bag now from my junior days, so I rolled the ball nicely as well.”
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Other players who shot 65 on Thursday were Louis Oosthuizen, Scott Piercy, Kevin Kisner, Matthew Wolff and Charley Hoffman, who won on this course in 2010, and Sebastian Munoz, who birdied his first seven holes.
Among the notable players who also posted low scores are:
Daniel Berger, Adam Scott and Tommy Fleetwood (66)
Rickie Fowler and Dustin Johnson (67)
Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele and Tiger Woods (68)
Woods put his old Scotty Cameron putter in the bag on Thursday, taking out the longer and heavier putter that he used at the PGA Championship.
“I had a good feel today. I had nice pace, and I like the speed of these greens,” Woods said. ” They’re fast. Even though they’re soft, but they’re still quick.”
Brooks Koepka withdrew from the Northern Trust on Wednesday due to a hip injury, and on Thursday morning, Ryan Moore withdrew after playing seven holes in 2-over par due to a back injury. Neither player was already inside the top 70 spots on the FedEx Cup point list, so they are out of the playoffs.
Among the notable players who struggled on Thursday were Phil Mickelson (74), Marc Leishman (75) and Graeme McDowell (77).
Nate Lashley, who won the 2019 Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit last year, fired a 62 on the North Course at Talking Stick Golf Club in Scottsdale. He eagled the second hole and also had six birdies and no bogeys and has a one-shot lead.
Zach Smith shot a 63 after posting seven birdies in his round. He is a shot back. Steven Kupcho, brother of rising LPGA star Jennifer Kupcho, shot a 6-under 64 and is solo third.
The eight-way tie for fourth at 5-under includes the PGA Tour’s Joel Dahmen, Scott Harrington and Kevin Streelman as well as the recently retired Colt Knost. They all shot 65s, as did the Korn Ferry Tour’s Brandon Wu, Kevin Lucas and Andre Metzger. Also at 5 under is Brady Calkins.
Brian Urlacher, Michael Phelps and Nate Lashley on the first tee box prior to the pro-am for the 2020 Scottsdale AZ Open at Talking Stick Golf Club in Arizona. Photo by Golfweek
Another PGA Tour player, JJ Spaun, shot a 2-under 68 and is T-26, tied with Sam Triplett, who is the son of PGA Tour Champions player Kirk Triplett. Let the record show that on this day, son beat father by two shots.
Dahmen won the tournament in 2017, his last professional win, and actually came into this event as the favorite.
“Vegas says I’m favored,” Dahmen said before his pro-am round on Monday. “This is such a new territory. … I’m usually like the 15th guy on the list at 100-to-1.”
Dahmen came in as hot as any player, having shot a 58 at nearby Mesa Country Club last week.
The Scottsdale AZ Open is a 54-hole stroke play event with a field of 162 players. After 36 holes, there will be a cut to the low 50 players and ties. The total purse is $130,000 with $20,000 going to the winner.
Kevin Streelman provided an interesting piece of information regarding the return of the PGA Tour.
SCOTTSDALE – Kevin Streelman provided an interesting piece of information regarding the return of the PGA Tour.
On Monday at the Scottsdale AZ Open pro-am, Streelman said the Tour plans to charter planes to transport players and caddies between events. Streelman is one of a handful of Tour pros, along with fellow Scottsdale resident and PGA Tour Champions player Kirk Triplett, competing in the mini-tour event this week.
Nate Lashley, who won the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit last season, is also in the field, along with Tour veterans Joel Dahmen, J.J. Spaun and recently-retired Colt Knost.
The PGA Tour season is scheduled to resume June 11-14 at the Charles Schwab Challenge at the Colonial Country Club in Ft. Worth, Texas.
Streelman, who is from Chicago but nowadays lives in Scottsdale, just up the road from Talking Stick Golf Club, site for the Scottsdale AZ Open, talked about getting to that first event in a month.
“There will probably be four, five, six of us who will split a plane to get to Colonial,” Streelman said. “The Tour has chartered planes, like big ones, for all the players and caddies in between events, trying to keep our bubble nice and tight.”
The 2020 Scottsdale AZ Open at Talking Stick Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona. Photo by Golfweek
Following the Schwab is the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head, South Carolina, June 18-21. Then the Tour is off to TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut, June 25-28, for the Travelers. Then it’s the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit July 2-5.
Those first four events back, for now, will be staged without fans.
“It’s going to be different for sure,” said Streelman about PGA Tour golf without spectators on site. “It’s necessary and the priority is getting good competition, have a nice TV product for our fans, that’s definitely the priority.
“But, the leaders are going to miss that excitement. My favorite memories are being in the heat, seeing what you got, hearing that electricity roll around a PGA Tour event on Sunday afternoons, as we know here (at the Waste Management Phoenix Open), the craziness. … to me, that’s part of what do it for.”
Dahmen won the Scottsdale AZ Open in 2017, which he says was his last professional win.
“I kind of laugh at that one,” Dahmen says. “I really don’t have any fans anyways. I have my wife out there, a couple of stragglers.
“Koepka was like ‘Without fans, who’s going to find our golf ball?’ and I was like ‘Welcome to everybody else’s world’. So we’ll see how it all shakes out.”
Dahmen said it’ll be especially weird celebrating a winning putt without the roar of the crowd.
The 2020 Scottsdale AZ Open at Talking Stick Golf Club in Scottsdale. Photo by Golfweek
“You kind of feed off the crowd when you’re playing well. … I know there’s a lot of moving parts,” he said in regards to getting the PGA Tour back online.
He said the players have been told a few things about the return, including that they will all be tested at each tournament. He’s hoping the test is not like the one seen in those viral videos, where a long Q-tip goes deep into someone’s head.
“I think it’s going to be a saliva test,” Dahman said, who then joked: “There might be a lot of guys who don’t play if we’re sticking that down our nose three or four times a week.”
Triplett, whose last competitive round came at the Hoag Classic in Newport Beach, California, on March 8, says it’s a tough call as to when pro golf should come back.
“I don’t have an answer. I’m not here playing this week to make some big statement,” Triplett said, who noted that his son is also in the Scottsdale AZ Open field.
“I respect both sides. I respect the people that are out of work and want to get back to work and make a few bucks. I respect the people that are afraid of what this disease could do to them or their family.”
So can golf help lead the charge back to a world with pro sports?
“I think so. We play outside. That’s one. We social distance as it is. If you’re six feet away, you’re probably too close anyway,” Dahmen joked. “If we get proper testing and we know everyone is negative. … golf is in good position to lead the charge back and sports is, I think, is important for American culture.”
The Scottsdale AZ Open is a 54-hole stroke play event with a field of 162 players. After 36 holes, there will be a cut to the low 50 players and ties. The total purse is $130,000 with $20,000 going to the winner.
Tournament director says: “We feel at this time we will be able to put on a top-notch tournament in a safe, public environment.”
Some big names will tee it up in the 2020 Desert Financial Credit Union Scottsdale Arizona Open.
Tournament Director Ryan Pray confirmed on Wednesday that three-time PGA Tour winner Kirk Triplett, who also has eight PGA Tour Champions wins, two-time PGA Tour winner Kevin Streelman and PGA Tour pro Joel Dahmen are in the field. All three golfers are Scottsdale residents, so it’ll be a home game for them.
Dahmen won the event in 2017. Those three will compete against 153 others for the $20,000 first-place check. Total purse the event is $125,000.
Another Tour pro, Nate Lashley, is in the field. He won the 2019 Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit for his first Tour victory. He also won the 2017 Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Championship when it was a Korn Ferry Tour event.
Also: JJ Spaun, who has won on the PGA Canada Tour and the Korn Ferry Tour, is set to play the event.
Talking Stick Golf Club’s North course, the No. 18-ranked course on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play in Arizona, will be the stage of this event.
“We are excited that we don’t need to postpone this event and eager to get out to Talking Stick Golf Club for the fourth edition of the Scottsdale AZ Open,” Pray said. “We have been watching the COVID-19 crisis very carefully and keeping up-to-date on orders from the Governor, and we feel at this time we will be able to put on a top-notch tournament in a safe, public environment.”
