No fans for PGA or new event at Muirfield Village
TPC Harding Park
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Monday that the 2020 PGA Championship will be held without fans.
City health officials approved plans to hold the PGA of America’s flagship event at TPC Harding Park, but due to California’s battle with the coronavirus pandemic, spectators will not be allowed on the property.
The Chronicle reports an official announcement will come today.
The 2020 PGA Championship, originally set for May, will take place from August 6-9 with Brooks Koepka the defending champion.
Workday to sponsor new event at Muirfield
The PGA TOUR has announced that a full-field tournament has been scheduled for July 6-12 at Muirfield Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, through a partnership with Workday, Inc but there will be no fans allowed.
Featuring a 156-player field and $6.2 million purse, the Workday Charity Open will be held without the general public in attendance the week prior to the Memorial Tournament (which will have 8,000 fans per day), filling the week vacated when the 2020 John Deere Classic was cancelled on May 28.
The new event will lead into the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, one of three elevated events on the PGA TOUR that offers a three-year exemption to its winner and a limited field of 120, to which it will revert back after having been adjusted to 144 with the announcement of the reimagined PGA TOUR schedule on April 16.
The John Deere Classic will return to the PGA TOUR schedule in 2021.
No fans for 3M Classic
While PGA of America and European Tour officials hoping to stage the Ryder Cup see the 8,000-a-day crowd permitted at the Memorial Tournament as a great sign, the trend of fan-free golf would suggest their optimism is misplaced.
Following the fan-free return for the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial, there will be no fans for this week’s RBC Heritage, the Travelers Championships, the Rocket Mortgage Classic or the Workday Charity Classic.
The 2020 #3MOpen will be conducted July 23-26 as a TV-only event, with no fans on-site. Individual ticket purchases made via Ticketmaster will be automatically refunded within the next 30 days. Volunteers will be emailed with updates. Visit https://t.co/njpZURu2cM for more info. pic.twitter.com/1Yi1Y7OCSc
— 3M Open (@3MOpen) June 15, 2020
There will be no fans either at the 3M Open from July 23-26 as Minnesota state guidelines prohibit spectators from attending.
The following week’s World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational has said it’s “optimistic” about allowing fans at TPC Southwind in Memphis from July 30 to August 2 but with the PGA Championship also set to be played behind closed doors, hopes of a Ryder Cup with limited fans may prove optimistic.
