The Masters has Augusta National.
The U.S. Open has its blue blazers.
The Open Championship has the R&A.
And, the PGA Championship has Kerry Haigh.
In a game in which tastes and preferences are as varied as paint swatches at a hardware store, Haigh is universally appreciated for his ability to set up a major championship without extremes. If golf were American politics, Haigh would be the rare person standing in the aisle, reaching one hand to each side.
Given the chance to set up TPC Harding Park in San Francisco for its first major championship (it has previously hosted the Presidents Cup and two World Golf Championships), Haigh, chief championships officer for the PGA of America, had the rare opportunity to put his touches on a fresh canvas.
He never imagined it would happen the way it has.
“It has certainly been different,” Haigh said recently about his off-again, on-again preparations for the PGA Championship.
On-site planning was replaced by video calls.
Just getting to the first tee at Harding Park on Thursday morning will be an accomplishment given the ever-changing challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the best of times, major championships don’t spring to life in a few weeks. They are years in the making, six years in the case of Harding Park.
It’s not just about the course and tweaking it. There are transportation plans to create, housing options to consider, catering, spectator flow and a small city of structures to construct.
All of those were underway earlier this year. Then, on March 16, the buildout stopped. Everything stopped.
“I was there in February and early March planning for a May championship,” Haigh said. “Then we put everything on hold.”
For seven weeks, the Harding Park golf course was closed. Professional golf shut down. It would be three months before the PGA Tour restarted, taking out the May date for the PGA Championship.
Eventually, the game’s leaders put together a schedule that moved the PGA Championship to this week, essentially back to the date it held for many years until flipping to a May date in 2019. If things get back to normal, the PGA Championship will revert to May going forward.
Once the August date was established, Haigh had to contemplate more what-ifs. The biggest – what if fans were not allowed to attend the event?
That announcement came in June.
Bleachers had already been built on four holes and they were taken down. What was to have been a sprawling merchandise pavilion was repurposed into an area for players and caddies.
Then there was the matter of preparing the course for an event to be played three months later than planned. In that sense, the change didn’t create major problems.
Social distancing will remain a priority and masks will be required in many areas. The media contingent, usually in the hundreds, will be limited to a few dozen people. There will be no shuttles running people in and out. There will be bubbles within the bubble.
Had the PGA Championship been scheduled at a different venue – say the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, which was ready as a back-up site had it been necessary to move from Harding Park – the difference in May and August conditions would have been dramatic.
Given San Francisco’s cooler climate, it was not necessary to make major agronomic adjustments to Harding Park, which re-opened to public play in May and had more than 200 golfers a day for several weeks.
“It’s nice. Everyone’s been wearing sweaters here,” Haigh said from San Francisco, aware that most of the country was sweltering under the summer sun.
The window of daylight in August is slightly smaller than it would have been in May but Haigh doesn’t foresee any issues.
While the PGA Championship isn’t run by the PGA Tour, it has the benefit of having seen the tour’s successful return to competition and it will employ many of the same procedures and protocols.
Social distancing will remain a priority and masks will be required in many areas. The media contingent, usually in the hundreds, will be limited to a few dozen people. There will be no shuttles running people in and out. There will be bubbles within the bubble.
It isn’t the way Haigh imagined the PGA Championship at Harding Park unfolding but he feels good about the plan in place. It has required adaptation and ingenuity and while the roars may be missing, the PGA Championship has arrived.
“We are being very cautious and doing anything and everything we’ve been asked to do,” Haigh said. “We will abide by all of the protocols we have been asked to abide by.”
How will it feel when the first shot of this PGA Championship is struck?
“It will be a relief to get there,” Haigh said.