Except for the birdies and bogeys, it feels like everything is different as the PGA Tour season resumes this week at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas.
No fans. Almost no media. A different television experience.
Testing and thermal scans are now part of the weekly routine. Players and caddies will operate at a proper social distance with players pulling their own clubs. No post-round handshakes.
Another thing hasn’t changed – it was around 100 degrees at Colonial Country Club on Tuesday.
“It’s going to be different,” Justin Thomas said. “You can’t go into this thinking it’s going to be normal because it’s not. I would say 2020 is beyond a bizarre year so far, and especially in the world of sports it’s just going to be different.
“If we all want to get back and play the game that we love, and not just for us but for the fans and everybody at home, we’re just going to have to get over the fact that it’s going to be different and be a little weird.”
It may feel normal quickly or it may not. Watching players make birdies to no applause may feel flat. What’s a Sunday shootout going to feel like if everyone is cheering from their couches and recliners?
“Somebody is going to fist-bump, somebody is going to do something because it’s going to be extremely hard just to get away from our routine. But more than that, can you imagine if somebody makes a 30-foot bomb on 18 to win the tournament? Nothing? Crickets? It’s going to be a little weird,” Jon Rahm said.
“I was joking with somebody, it would almost be better if they had like the Rickie Fowler commercial, just have speakers on every green, and if you hit a good shot just press play and you hear something and then you move on.”
Tour players are creatures of habit and virtually every aspect of the return to competition has been tweaked or turned upside down. The simple matter of picking up golf balls for the week is different now.
Is getting back into tournament form as easy as flipping a switch?
We’re about to find out.
“… I sometimes feel rusty after two, three weeks off, let alone four months. That’s going to be weird, but at the same time it’s going to be weird for everybody.” – Justin Thomas
“I think the hardest thing for me is just going to be getting back into it. The fact that that 4-footer I have on the first hole matters, and yeah, if I hit this ball in a hazard, OK, that’s a penalty stroke, or a penalty area or whatever, and it’s real,” Thomas said.
“It’s not just going out and having a money game with your buddies. Every shot counts. It matters. It’s cumulative score for four days. That’s I think for me the thing that’s going to be the hardest because I sometimes feel rusty after two, three weeks off, let alone four months. That’s going to be weird, but at the same time it’s going to be weird for everybody.”
Getting to this point has been a monumental undertaking for the tour. First, it had to deal with the various cancellations and postponements of events with almost 30 tournaments impacted in one way or another by the pandemic.
Once the schedule was rebuilt (and it has been tweaked again in the last two weeks with a second event at Muirfield Village added in July), putting the pieces together for a resumption of competition meant building a model almost from scratch.
Having mobile testing units on site was a critical step. The units can turn around test results in less than four hours and everyone inside the tournament bubble will be cleared medically each day.
There are designated hotels for players unless they choose to stay in private homes with their own chef as Thomas, Fowler and Jason Dufner are doing in Texas.
The expectation is, at least in the first four events, there will be approximately 1,100 people on site. That will change when fans are allowed for the first time at the Memorial Tournament in mid-July.
Television coverage, the way most people get their PGA Tour fix, is changing. CBS Sports will have approximately half the number of workers at Colonial than it would in a normal week.
Graphics and replays will be handled in Los Angeles, California, rather than in a truck on the tournament grounds.
Jim Nantz will anchor the television coverage from a small booth that has a robotic camera and he will address the issues going on in the country at the start of the weekend broadcasts. Nick Faldo will chime in from a studio in Orlando, Florida, as will Ian Baker-Finch and Frank Nobilo.
“We’re all going to adjust. It’s one of the great challenges I’ve seen in my 35 years,” Nantz said.
Given three months to reimagine television coverage, there will be changes this weekend. Some players have agreed to wear microphones during play. They won’t be interviewed during the tournament but their comments will be picked up and shared.
Players are also being asked to step into a small booth set up on the back nine during play and answer one question.
“We’ve been talking to the tour about it for years,” said Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports. “There is a greater appreciation for wanting to contemporize golf coverage and players realize they can play a role in it.
“Not every player will say yes, and a majority might say no, but I sense there might be a little more interest.”
The on-course booth will be empty except for a camera and a card with a single question for the player. If players choose not to participate, that’s OK. If they do, their responses will be shown during the telecast, adding a new wrinkle.
“We’re not asking for a lot. There’s no one there to force you into some sort of perfunctory chit-chat during the round. It’s as simple as walking to an unmanned camera on a tripod and seeing a question on a card. They give us 20 seconds of their thoughts and go on,” Nantz said.