By Dan Rapaport
Beginning Nov. 8, PGA Tour players and caddies who are not U.S. nationals will be required to be vaccinated for COVID-19 in order to enter the United States.

The tour alerted its membership of the CDC’s new policy in the informational “Green Sheet” it sends to players and caddies each week, a copy of which was viewed by Golf Digest. The updated regulations also require non-U.S. nationals to receive a negative COVID-19 test within three days of traveling to the U.S.

Unvaccinated Americans will still be able to enter the country but must provide a negative COVID-19 test within three days of travel.

Vaccinations became an issue at last week’s Bermuda Championship, which was not able to fill its 132-man field in part because of the island nation’s vaccine requirement. Had this week’s Worldwide Technology Championship at Mayakoba taken place one week later, every non-U.S. national player and caddie in the field would be required to be vaccinated in order to return to the United States and resume playing the PGA Tour.

The PGA Tour stopped testing fully vaccinated players in April and ceased its on-site testing program entirely in July. According to Golf Channel, 83 percent of the PGA Tour’s players, caddies and essential staff are fully vaccinated.

The post Non-American PGA Tour players, caddies will soon need COVID-19 vaccine to enter the United States appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

It’s not only being outside and exercising that is good for us. It’s how we learn to handle frustration, and even who we’re with

By Sam Weinman
There are figures we can point to that measure golf’s growth during the pandemic—how many rounds were played, how many clubs were sold, how many more new golfers emerged in the absence of other options. What is impossible to quantify is how many people got out of bed each day because of golf.

Perhaps we overestimate the value of a tee time. But in the same way the pandemic forced us to identify some activities as reckless and others as safe, it also drew a line between the pursuits that left us hollow and those that infused us with purpose. Even this week, as we shed light on the emerging emotional challenges facing golfers—whether it’s the toll the professional game takes on players’ psyches; or the toxic influence of social media—it’s worth noting that for the majority of us, golf still does far more good than harm. It pulls us outside and away from the doom-scrolling temptations of our devices. It connects us with others. And it’s proven to be a low-stakes training ground for how we navigate and process disappointment.

In the U.K., Dr. Roger Hawkes oversaw the Golf & Health Project that was established to underscore the benefits of golf. Among its published findings was that playing golf regularly can help “reduce anxiety, improve confidence and boost self-esteem, all of which contribute to improved mental well-being.” According to Hawkes, former chief medical officer of the European Tour, those findings played a role in government officials prioritizing the opening of golf courses.

“Prior to the pandemic, the idea was that policy makers, especially in countries where golf is still emerging, would be more likely to invest in a sport with proven benefits,” Hawkes elaborated. “The pandemic has focused everyone’s minds on mental health and well-being and highlighting the published evidence was a factor in the UK government allowing golf to be resumed much earlier than other community sports.”

While it is not a new concept to extol golf’s role in clearing our heads, the pandemic has emerged as an unanticipated game-changer in reframing the sport as something we not only want to do, but perhaps something we should do as well. But even then, the reasons extend beyond the bullet points offered in studies. For starters, let’s acknowledge that the game isn’t a substitute for real therapy—nor, for that matter, does it even guarantee you will leave the course happy. But oddly, this is helpful, too, since even the game’s many frustrations can be constructive in cultivating resilience.

“We always say that golf reveals who we are, and one of the things that golf reveals is all the ways we think.” – Jeff Ritter

“It’s not just being out there that’s good for you, because there are a lot of miserable golfers,” said Jeff Ritter, a Golf Digest top teacher in Oregon whose Make The Turn performance program is as much about overall wellness as lower scores. “But there are a lot of inherent lessons in the game that if you embrace, can teach you a lot about mindset.”

Where golf differs from yoga or running—two other activities that promote mental health benefits—is that playing golf invites a steady drumbeat of negative feedback. Or as Ritter puts it, “you have 70 to 100 opportunities to feel shitty at the end of a round.” How could that possibly be good for our well-being? Because golf eventually forces you to learn how to frame unpleasant outcomes to make them more palatable—otherwise we’d all have quit the first time we topped a drive.

Think of it as strength training for your mind. It might not feel good in the moment, but it gets us to a better place nonetheless.

“I tell people all the time, you have chosen to play and learn a really challenging game, ” Ritter says. “This was your choice, so you need to find the joy within the struggle. And if you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be out here.”

One of the exercises Ritter prescribes with his students involves a batch of paper clips. For every negative thought they entertain while playing, they’re told to take a paper clip out of one pocket and put it in the other, thus allowing them to measure precisely how often negative thoughts creep in over 18 holes. There is a strict golf application to this—like many coaches, Ritter stresses that you’re better positioned to hit a good shot when in a positive frame of mind—but the practice extends beyond the golf course. As with other forms of therapy, the first step in confronting a pattern of thoughts is fostering an awareness of them.

“We always say that golf reveals who we are, and one of the things that golf reveals is all the ways we think,” Ritter said. “We use the golf course to learn about ourselves.”

Granted, there are few golfers among us who seek the game out for four hours of self-analysis. More likely it’s the opposite in that we use golf to get out of our own heads and connect with others. In the earliest days of the pandemic, we adapted new habits—standing six feet apart on tee boxes; waving awkwardly goodbye at the end of rounds instead of shaking hands—not just because we wanted to get some swings in. It was also because we craved interaction with others.

J.D. Cuban

Back then the need felt extreme, but it underscored the essential social nature of golf that sustains us in normal times as well. The older we get, it seems, the more this need sharpens, something author Tom Coyne first explored in an essay for The Golfers’ Journal, and later in his book A Course Called America. Coyne’s thesis is that men especially—although certainly not exclusively—struggle to develop new friendships as they drift into middle age. Golf allows for an easier path, and provides a fertile setting for venturing past superficial small talk.

“I call the first tee the universal place of accord,” Coyne said by phone. “We’re all in a common pursuit and it’s hard for all of us. I think male relationships suffer from ego and golf is such a humbling endeavour that ego is wiped out by the third hole.”

“In golf, you have four hours. It’s a shoulder-to-shoulder activity but you also have a chance to talk a great deal.” – Prof. Geoff Greif

As Coyne notes, though, it’s not just that golf is hard. It’s also how golf fits the specifications of the type of “shoulder-to-shoulder” relationships that men prefer. The phrase, popularized by University of Maryland Professor Geoff Greif in his 2009 book on the dynamics of male friendship, Buddy System, speaks to a common distinction between male and female relationships. Whereas women in general are more comfortable in face-to-face interactions that dive more readily into substantive topics, men tend to get there circuitously by way of a shared activity—working together, watching a ballgame, and yes, playing golf.

“Golf is one of the few sports where you really have the opportunity while competing to actually communicate with somebody,” said Greif, who is also a golfer. “In tennis and basketball, there’s not a lot of time. But in golf you have four hours. It’s a shoulder-to-shoulder activity but you also have a chance to talk a great deal.”

And remember, it’s not just that golfers need other golfers to fill out a foursome and check each other’s alignment. Especially as we age, and perhaps our professional and family lives enter less frenetic phases, our opportunities to connect dwindle, and golf fills the void.

“Lack of social interaction has been shown in a number of studies to be a significant risk factor in the older population,” Hawkes said, adding that in one study, a lack of social interaction proved to even be worse for people than smoking.

Ultimately, the best way to measure golf’s influence on our well-being might be by subtraction. Again, look to the fraught early days—and in some regions, early months—of the pandemic, when assorted restrictions left us bottled inside our homes without an outlet. Or for those who live in northern climates, just think of a typical winter, when the greens are frozen over, and our group texts go silent.

“Golf depression is a real thing,” Coyne says. “There are months when I can’t play golf and I feel squirrely, cooped up. Everything has a diminished outlook.

“In golf season, meanwhile, I’m out walking, I’m exercising, I’m seeing people. The world looks a little brighter.”

The post Golf’s mental-health benefits are not just the ones you think appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
HAVEN, Wis.—The signage at Whistling Straits says “Ryder Cup 2020” which can give the occasional fan pause, considering it is, well, 2021. The outdated logo is a ubiquitous reminder that this event was postponed, and its date—a year that will live in infamy—a reminder why. But as the world wishes, and inches, towards a post-pandemic world, that is a finish line not crossed, and Tuesday’s media sessions with European captain Padraig Harrington indicated that COVID-19 still hovers over this competition.

Speaking to the media Tuesday afternoon in Haven, Wisc., Harrington was asked what would happen in the event a player tests positive for the virus and if he and American captain Steve Stricker have an agreement in place for such a scenario.

“Yes, there is—there’s lots of protocols,” Harrington said. “I assume the captains’ agreement is public, is it? So just like an injury name in the envelope, there’s a COVID name in the envelope.”

That would be the “Envelope Rule,” where each captain places a player’s name in an envelope, and in the event a player from the other side can’t play due to injury, said name in the envelope would sit out in singles with each side getting half a point. It has been a matter of controversy in the past, most notably in 1991 when Steve Pate was unable to play his Sunday match from injuries suffered in an accident earlier in the week, although Pate had played on Saturday and lost. With the half point secured, the U.S. edged out the Europeans 14 ½ to 13 ½.

Here is how a COVID situation will be handled, according to the Captain’s Agreement:

“When the captains lodge their team selection for singles play, they must provide a second sealed envelope containing the name of three players (in order of substitution) who are regarded as having been paired with the player’s who, due to COVID-19, have to withdraw from the other side. Such pairings are regarded as tied matches. If this requires the re-pairing of a match, this will be done down the order of the play.

“If one or two players from each team withdraw due to COVID-19, then they are treated as having been paired together (regardless of hidden selections) and the one or two other players from the particular matches will play each other.”

However, Harrington said he was unsure of what would happen in the scenario of a COVID-19 outbreak, as the agreement does not make mention of this possibility either.

“While we’ve asked, it’s still not completely clear what happens when we have—if, God forbid, we had a COVID outbreak of a number of players, but for one player it’s pretty straightforward,” Harrington said. “Obviously the first two days it’s four players sit out. I’m sure … so there’s no issues on those two days, but obviously on Sunday you start losing a few players to COVID, it does affect the match in some way.”

Of course, this is once the Ryder Cup has started. Should a player be injured or test positive prior to the opening ceremonies, each team can put an alternate on the roster. The Americans would be able to choose any player they want, per the agreement. The Europeans do not have that luxury, and their process is a bit more complex.

If the withdrawal is one of the five players who qualified from the World Points list, he will be replaced by the next player not already on the team from the list. That would be Victor Perez. There is some complicated language should the player come from the European list, but ultimately that player, along with any player who is a captain’s pick, can be replaced by anyone of Harrington’s choosing.

The 43rd Ryder Cup begins on Friday, Sept. 24, with the opening ceremonies slated for Sept. 23.

The post Why this controversial rule will be in effect should a player test COVID positive appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Keely Levins
The Buick LPGA Shanghai will not be played in October, marking the second consecutive year the event has been cancelled. In 2020, COVID-19 travel restrictions also prevented the event from being played. Danielle Kang won the event in 2019, as well as the inaugural event in 2018.

A month prior to this announcement, the Taiwan Swinging Skirts at Taipei, which was scheduled to be played at the end of October, was also cancelled. Two of the four events in the Asia Swing still remain on the calendar: the BMW Ladies Championship and the TOTO Japan Classic. In 2020, all four events on the Asia Swing were cancelled due to travel restrictions amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The LPGA Tour said in its statement that the Buick LPGA Shanghai will return to Qizhong Garden Golf Club in 2022.

The post LPGA announces cancellation of Shanghai event due to travel restrictions appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Tod Leonard
The PGA Tour has told its players that it will discontinue required COVID-19 testing for vaccinated and non-vaccinated partipicants starting the week of the 3M Open that begins on July 22.

In a memo to the players, acquired by Golf Digest, PGA Tour Senior Vice President Tyler Dennis outlined what the future looks like for COVID-19 protocols. He said the programs being discontinued starting with the 3M in Minnesota are: weekly on-site testing, complimentary at-home testing, all pro-am testing, and the stipend program that paid players when they had to withdraw from a tournament due to a positive COVID-19 test.

“We are pleased to announce, after consultation with PGA Tour medical advisors, that due to the high rate of vaccination among all constituents on the PGA Tour, as well as other positively trending factors across the country, testing for COVID-19 will no longer be required as a condition of competition beginning with the 3M Open,” Dennis wrote.

The tour, which does not require vaccinations to compete, has not disclosed how many players or other participants have been vaccinated. A tour spokesperson declined on Monday to say what the vaccination rate is. According to the CDC, 66 percent of American adults have received at least one vaccination shot.

The memo said on-site testing will be available for those who are symptomatic and emphasized that participants should continue to fill out a daily health survey and notify the tour of any symptoms. The Korn Ferry Tour, meantime, will continue to do on-site testing.

Though unvaccinated people don’t have to undergo testing, according to the memo, there are distinctions made. Vaccinated individuals will not have to undergo contact tracing should they be around someone who has COVID-19, while those who haven’t been vaccinated must notify the tour and follow contact tracing protocols.

The memo says that those who have been vaccinated “should” upload a copy of their vaccination record to their Healthy Roster account, but the tour will require proof of vaccination should the player be involved in a contact tracing situation, a tour spokesperson said.

The decision to end testing at events comes after 14 months of protocols established by the PGA Tour, which canceled play after one round of the Players Championship in March 2020 and resumed competition on June 11, 2020, in the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.

Since testing began, more than 25 tour players have tested positive for COVID-19, including some of the game’s most high-profile athletes: Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Tony Finau, Adam Scott, Gary Woodland and Padraig Harrington. No PGA Tour player has reported serious illness or hospitalization due to the coronavirus.

The post PGA Tour tells players it will end on-site COVID-19 testing in July appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Daniel Rapaport
Jordan Spieth told reporters Tuesday that he contracted COVID-19 shortly after the Masters but has since made a full recovery.

Speaking ahead of the AT&T Byron Nelson, which will mark Spieth’s first start since his T-3 at the Masters and his last appearance before next week’s PGA Championship at Kiawah, Spieth said he began to feel symptoms in late April—though he did not lose his sense of taste or smell—and that three separate tests returned a positive result.

“Not really sure when I got it, to be honest, because nobody I was around ever got it,” the 27-year-old said.

“It was bad for a day and a half and then it was just kind of annoying for the next five days. Kind of lost energy and sinus stuff. And then after that I started to get full strength back, and I would say the last week to week and a half now I’ve been acting as if it never happened. I’ve just gone about my days, feeling full energy and being able to hit full workouts and practice sessions and all that kind of stuff.”

Spieth said he quarantined in his Texas home away from his wife, Annie, and that she nor anyone else in his household contracted the virus. The virus did, however, keep him from playing in the Valspar Championship.

“I like the golf course there, so I was really bummed. It was tough watching it knowing that I had been playing well and I would go to a course that I like a lot, but that’s unfortunately part of the world we live in right now. I don’t think I would have been 100 percent last week [for the Wells Fargo Championship], so decided to wait until this week.”

Spieth, of course, won for the first time in nearly four years at last month’s Valero Texas Open, then contended at the Masters the following week. He has six top-10 finishes in eight starts in 2021 and will once again have a chance to complete the career Grand Slam next week at Kiawah.

“Every year I go into that tournament—it’s like it’s the one that if I could pick one more to win, I would pick that one,” he said. “But it doesn’t really … while I’m playing the tournament, it hasn’t really hit me and added any pressure or anything like that. It just kind of excites me a little bit more going into it.”

The AT&T Byron Nelson counts as a home game for Spieth, who grew up in the Dallas area and still lives there. He made his first career PGA Tour start as a 16-year-old high school amateur in the event in 2010, finishing T-16, his best finish in the tournament in nine career starts.

The post Jordan Spieth says he contracted COVID-19, has fully recovered appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Three players have withdrawn from the Valspar Championship due to positive COVID-19 tests, the PGA Tour announced.

Will Gordon and Brice Garnett registered positive tests on Monday, with Sepp Straka pulling out of the tournament for the same reason Tuesday morning. Due to the CDC guidelines, all must now enter self-isolation.

Garnett was coming off a strong performance at the Zurich Classic, teaming with Scott Stallings to finish T-11 at TPC Louisiana last week. The 37-year-old also posted top 10s at the Puerto Rico Open and Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship. He entered the week 113th in the FedEx Cup. After his WD, Garnett posted an offer to fans on Twitter. “I don’t get to play this week,” Garnett wrote, “but I do have 2 Ticketmaster tickets available each day if anyone is in the Tampa area and wanting to watch some golf.”

Gordon, who earned full status on the tour this season through 11 starts via exemptions, qualifiers and special temporary membership last campaign, the WD continues a rough 2021. The Vanderbilt product has made 12 of 20 cuts but produced a lone top 25 finish. Ranking 152nd in strokes gained and 148th in the FedEx Cup, Gordon has some work to do over the second half of the season to keep his card for 2021.

Straka has been enjoying a quietly consistent campaign, making the cut in 15 of 20 starts this season. Ranking 88th in the FedEx Cup, Straka posted a T-29 finish last week with Josh Teeter at the Zurich.

In a memo released to players last week, the PGA Tour is changing its testing policy, as well as updating its health and safety protocols, for those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19. The biggest change involves no more routine testing for those who have been fully vaccinated, stated as 14 days since the last vaccine shot was administered. For those who are not vaccinated, testing will remain a condition of participation. However, on-site testing operations will discontinue at the end of June. Once those operations stop, non-vaccinated players will be required to show proof of a negative test at their own expense 72 hours before tournament arrival. This will be required not only for players but caddies, along with others inside the tour’s bubble.

Taking the place of Gordon, Garnett, and Straka in the field are Tim Wilkinson, J.J. Spaun, and Nelson Ledesma. The Valspar Championship begins Thursday at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead course. Cancelled due to the pandemic last spring, 2019 winner Paul Casey is the defending champ.

The post Three players WD from Valspar Championship due to COVID-19 appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
The PGA Tour informed players Monday that it is changing its testing policy, as well as updating its health and safety protocols, for those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

With all people age 18 and over now eligible for vaccination, the tour announced a new framework in a memo for policing against the virus. The biggest change involves no more routine testing for those who have been fully vaccinated, stated as 14 days since the last vaccine shot was administered. Additionally, fully vaccinated players will be allowed to gather in small groups, per CDC guidelines, and those who come in close contact with an individual who has tested positive for COVID-19 will not need to quarantine unless exhibiting symptoms. The use of face coverings and social distancing will still be required in accordance with the tour’s health and safety program, with the tour adding it still has the discretion to periodically test its membership.

For those who are not vaccinated, testing will remain a condition of participation. However, on-site testing operations will discontinue at the end of June. Once those operations stop, non-vaccinated players will be required to show proof of a negative test at their own expense 72 hours before tournament arrival. This will be required not only for players but caddies, along with others inside the tour’s bubble.

The tour upholds its stance that it will not mandate vaccination, believing the matter a personal choice. However, in its letter the tour writes it “strongly encourages all constituents to get vaccinated as soon as eligible,” stating that it plans on making the vaccines accessible once they are available for private allocation. The tour also listed a number of “vaccine considerations” in the memo, highlighting the vaccines’ safety and efficacy, it’s worldwise use, and knocking down misconceptions and falsehoods about concerns of the vaccine.

On Sunday the CDC announced more than half of all American adults have received at least one vaccine dose against COVID-19.

The post PGA Tour changes COVID-19 testing, health protocols for vaccinated and non-vaccinated players appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Daniel Rapaport
The PGA Tour will no longer require fully vaccinated players to take COVID-19 tests in order to play in events.

The tour informed players of the decision in an email earlier this week, a copy of which was obtained by Golf Digest.

“As the COVID-19 vaccine is becoming more readily available, more individuals are being vaccinated,” the email reads. “PGA Tour Health and Safety protocol requires individuals to continue testing onsite until 14 full days have passed since their second dose (Moderna & Pfizer) or 14 full days since their single dose (Johnson & Johnson). Once 14 days have passed, individuals are no longer required to take a COVID-19 test when considered ‘inside the bubble’ at PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions or Korn Ferry Tour events.”

Players—and anyone else entering the bubble, including caddies, coaches, trainers and the like—will be expected to upload their vaccination cards to the Healthy Roster app, which the tour has used to facilitate health-related communications throughout the pandemic.

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan has stopped short of saying the tour will require players to be vaccinated in order to play—“I think vaccination is a choice,” he said in December—but said at the Players Championship that he was “hopeful” everyone in the tour ecosystem would get the vaccine.

“We’re going to do everything we can to educate all of our players on the facts behind vaccinations,” Monahan said. “I think the most important thing right now is education, and then we’re going to do everything we can to support vaccination for our players when it’s appropriate to do so.”

The tour has required a negative COVID-19 test before entering a tournament’s “bubble” since last June, when play resumed after a three-month hiatus. More than 20 players have returned positive tests at tour events and thus have been forced to withdraw and quarantine in the same city they took the test. Each player who tested positive was given a $100,000 stipend from the tour.

The post PGA Tour will no longer require vaccinated players to take COVID-19 tests at tournaments appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Shedloski
The last full measure of what we might consider “normalcy” on the PGA Tour occurred a year ago at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, where England’s Tyrrell Hatton asserted himself as a world-class player just a few days before the world stopped turning.

The term “business as usual” truly applied to the events that unfolded last March at Bay Hill Club & Lodge. There were smatterings of talk about the spread of the COVID-19 virus, which hadn’t yet earned its insidious reputation as a pandemic. But it was moving in that direction. There was an undercurrent of uncertainty wafting throughout the property, but it was keeping a low profile. No one really knew what to think. No one knew what to believe.

When tournament week commenced exactly one year ago, on March 2, 2020, there were only 100 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States and nine reported deaths from the virus—though the numbers were likely far greater but not detected because of a scarcity of adequate testing. Casualties worldwide were 3,300, predominantly in Asia. “We’re dealing with clearly an emerging infectious disease that has now reached outbreak proportions and likely pandemic proportions,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that day.

That same day, the PGA Tour issued a statement saying that officials were “closely monitoring all available information related to the continued spread of the Novel Coronavirus COVID-19” and that it was “establishing additional protocols to promote the health and safety of all participants and fans at our tournament.”

The following day, Augusta National Golf Club joined the chorus of concern, though club chairman Fred Ridley, in a memo to the media, asserted that there was not yet any change in status of the Masters Tournament or the accompanying preliminary events, the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals.

Golf already had taken a hit, however. Three LPGA events in Asia had been cancelled, as were the first four events of the PGA Tour’s developmental circuit in China. Also, two April European Tour events were being postponed.

But at Bay Hill, the band played on. The grounds were teeming with patrons. They bought food and beverages and perused apparel and souvenirs in the merchandise tent and thought nothing about the person who was serving it to them. They asked for autographs and players obliged. People shook hands. They talked freely in close quarters. They took pictures by the 13-foot bronze statue of Arnold Palmer that shadows the first tee. No one wore a mask. No one thought to do so. Or felt the need.

Keyur Khamar
An excited Sunday crowd on 18 at Bay Hill watches as Tyrrell Hatton gets set to win his first PGA Tour title.

As usual, the media quizzed players about the first major of the year. The Masters might not begin until the back nine on Sunday, but discussion of it begins in earnest when the tour moves into Florida. Phil Mickelson was quizzed about his possible interest in the proposed high-dollar Premier Golf League. Brooks Koepka was searching for his golf game, which had gone AWOL, scuttled by injuries.

Still, there was something on the wind.

The Olympic Golf competition, impacted in 2016 by the Zika virus that prompted a slew of top players to skip golf’s return to the Summer Games in Rio, was on more than a few players’ minds. (And, of course, the Tokyo Olympics eventually would be postponed until 2021.)

Rory McIlroy, ranked No. 1 in the world at the time and one of the players who skipped the Rio Games, said, “It’s something that we’re trying to stay on top of. If the organizers and the Olympic Committee believe it’s safe enough that athletes can go and compete in the Games, then you have to take their word for it.”

“It seems a bit overblown at the moment,” Adam Scott added, though he, too, was among the players who did not compete in 2016. “We don’t know which medical experts in the field to believe. It’s just, we’ll have to wait and see.”

Scott wasn’t trying to deny the dangers of the virus. But in early March, there wasn’t much known about the coronavirus, and some of the information being disseminated was conflicting.

Zach Johnson was one player who knew people who were starting to worry. He had given Bay Hill tickets to longtime family friends, but on the eve of the tournament they cancelled, citing fears of the virus. He understood. They are in their 60s and at a higher mortality risk.

Michael Reaves/R&A
Days before COVID-19 would turn the U.S. upside down, Brendon Todd and other players were still giving fans autographs and high fives.

There were others on the grounds unsure of just how to feel. “Air” handshakes were offered by a few acquaintances, jokingly, nervously, as a way to acknowledge that, yes, there might be something to all this coronavirus talk. Call it the first gestures of social distancing.

Overall, though, there was very little of that, very little worry, very few hints of what was to come for golf, for America, for the world. The game was still the thing. The tournament and the competition went on without a hitch, and the atmosphere was by almost all accounts, strikingly normal—at least in the context of what we know now.

Again, there was something, subtly, on the wind. Oh, and also there was just wind. A lot of it. Dry, gusting, turf-toughening wind. It was present from the start of the tournament, but nature jacked up the fans to frappe on the weekend, and scores got scrambled. Hatton’s four-under 284 total was the highest winning score in tournament history, and he became the first player since Geoff Ogilvy in the 2006 U.S. Open to win despite failing to break par in each of the last two rounds. There was one round in the 60s over the weekend, by Matthew Fitzpatrick, who shot a final-round 69.

As is tradition, media members shared a toast of Ketel One vodka—Arnie’s preferred beverage—with the new champion. The Players, the PGA Tour’s lucrative flagship event, was days away. So was the world being turned upside down.

The post A year ago at Bay Hill, little did anybody know they were seeing the last ‘normal’ golf tournament appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.