For the first time since March, thousands of fans will be present at a professional golf tournament.
The milestone will be set this weekend at the Sanford International, a PGA Tour Champions event taking place in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as roughly 10,000 people are expected to come through the turnstiles each day of the 54-hole tournament. On paper, it’s just another senior circuit event with the expected cast of characters – save for golfer/musician Colt Ford making his tour debut – but the success or failure of the fan experiment will be a significant indicator for how quickly the pro golf world can return to normalcy.
Hollis Cavner, chief executive officer of Pro Links Sports, which operates the Sanford International and three PGA Tour events, spoke with Global Golf Post on the eve of the tournament.
“We’ve had calls from all over the country and even overseas with people saying they’re glad we are doing this because this gives us a chance to get back to normal,” Cavner said. “Every eye in golf is on us this week. If we pull it off and do a really, really good job, you will see more events with fans. Somebody had to be the guinea pig.”
With the professional golf world shutting down in March before slowly getting back on its feet throughout this summer, tournament life without fans has largely been accepted. The PGA Tour initially hoped to have limited spectators at the Memorial Tournament in July but punted on the concept as the country’s known COVID-19 cases steadily increased throughout June and July.
“This is a perfect place to do it if we are going to do it.” – Hollis Cavner
Cavner, who is also the executive director of the 3M Open and the man who spent 12 years attempting to land a PGA Tour event for Minnesota, said he pleaded for 5,000 fans to be allowed each day at his tournament, which came the week after the Memorial in July. Included in his offer was for all the tickets to the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities to be given for free exclusively to military veterans and their families. According to Cavner, Minnesota governor Tim Walz denied the request.
It ended up being a moot point, as the PGA Tour went on to announce that all of its events would be held without fans for the rest of the season. At last week’s Tour Championship, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said pro-ams will be reinstituted later this month at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship and plans are being drawn for fans to potentially return in early 2021. Decisions about whether to include hospitality and grandstands will come approximately six to eight weeks in advance of a given tournament.
“Every tournament is starting to plan for multiple potential outcomes, and hopefully planning towards the return of what we know as normal, and that’s fans on-site,” Monahan said. “Just given the consistently fluid nature of the virus and the way different communities are responding, each discussion is a different discussion. And so you may see different tournaments returning at different levels as we get into the end of the year and into ’21.”
While that is the PGA Tour’s plan moving forward, the Sanford International became an ideal spot to test whether fans could work in a smaller setting. South Dakota governor Kristi Noem has been aggressive with approving large events like the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and South Dakota State Fair, which have factored into the state’s positive test rate increasing to 19 percent. However, the sparsely populated state ranks 41st nationally in confirmed cases and 44th in COVID-related deaths, making a golf tournament with thousands of fans more of a realistic endeavor. The demand was high, as tickets for both the pro-am and tournament rounds sold out shortly after going on sale.
Perhaps even more important for this event being the first to have fans is that Sanford Health is the PGA Tour’s official mobile COVID-19 testing partner and expressed interest in having their title-sponsored event showcase how hosting spectators could be feasible.
“This is a perfect place to do it if we are going to do it,” Cavner said.
All pro-am participants will be tested and all spectators will have their temperature checked using non-contact wrist thermometers prior to getting on a shuttle. There is no mask mandate, although free masks will be available. The course will be set up so fans won’t be as close to players as normal — there are no autograph areas and ropes throughout the property will provide wider corridors.
Cavner is bullish on the event’s ability to enforce social distancing and become the blueprint for professional golf tournaments around the world.
“Ten thousand people on a golf course this size is not a huge crowd,” Cavner said. “All of our marshals are asking for 6 feet apart and unless people arrive together as a group, they are going to be asked to separate. We’re pushing hard for that.
“We all know that you have to have fans and you have to have sponsors to make this tour work. At some point, we have to get back to this. We’re the test child for this, and I think it’s actually funny because the players are excited to see fans out here. … I joked with Miller Brady, who is the president of the Champions Tour, ‘Don’t you let your players come in here and get my fans sick.’ ”
Cavner points to state regulations and individual governors as being the biggest barrier to the PGA Tour and other professional golf events hosting fans moving forward, which could create a patchwork schedule where some events have fans and some events don’t. For instance, Pro Links Sports operates the Valspar Championship and Wells Fargo Championship in consecutive weeks this upcoming spring. Florida has been more willing to take on the risk of spectator events than North Carolina has – the former has started high school sports with fans and the latter has moved all high school sports to the spring. It’s possible that the Valspar allows fans in late April at Innisbrook in Palm Harbor, Florida, and the Wells Fargo does not the next week at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Regardless of how and when fans come back to golf, the players appear ready to see them.
Some have quietly enjoyed the lack of pro-ams and getting to compete without constant yelling as soon as they reach impact, but the relaxed atmosphere has its drawbacks. Earlier in the summer, Rory McIlory admitted that his mind was wandering in the absence of fans. Collin Morikawa lamented not having fans there to cheer after his tournament-clinching tee shot on the 16th hole at the PGA Championship. Last week at East Lake, Kevin Kisner was passionate in saying how fans are an essential piece of PGA Tour events.
“We need the fans back,” Kisner said. “Without the fans, the tournaments aren’t the same. The revenues aren’t the same. We need them back. All of us want to play in front of fans. We appreciate the buzz that the fans create. We appreciate having people applauding for our golf shots other than the one or two volunteers on a hole.
“I think the start of the new year we’ll probably transition into trying something. Obviously, it takes time.”
It will take time, but an outbreak-free week in South Dakota will go a long way to proving whether or not fans belong back at golf tournaments.