The day THE PLAYERS Championship stoppedThe eerie silence over TPC Sawgrass was broken only by interviews, maintenance carts and therefore the sound of packed luggage rolling over the cobblestones
Commissioner Jay Monahan discusses cancellation of THE PLAYERS
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Birds still chirped, the clubhouse fountain still burbled, and therefore the Rolex clock between the practice green and first tee still told everyone and nobody the time..
“It’s surreal,” said Ryan Armour, holding up his phone to capture the instant .
Armour’s bags were packed at his feet, and shortly he would be headed home to – well, what, exactly?
“I was just talking about this with my wife,” he said. “Because our kids’ sports events have all been canceled, too. Our whole life revolves around athletics. What are we getting to do for subsequent month? The closest thing I can compare it to is 9/11, but a minimum of then you'll see it and obtain your head around it.”
That’s not the case with Coronavirus, or COVID-19. Who at TPC Sawgrass had it, if anyone? What did the longer term hold? The eerie silence was broken only by interviews, maintenance carts, and therefore the sound of packed luggage rolling over the cobblestones.
The sun shone. The yellow, purple and white flowers round the base of the clubhouse fountain began waking to the heat of the day, able to boast . Overhead, a jet put down a white stripe over the blue , a reminder that somewhere, somehow, things were normal.
Just not here, where the towering video boards still reminded of Hideki Matsuyama’s first-round 63, but thousands of man-hours wouldn't , incredibly, add up to a tournament.
“Put it up, take it down, unfortunately,” said a person as he collected green-and-white-flecked gallery rope near the primary hole, where the opening tee shot vexes players.
Alas, those players won't be in action for a minimum of a month. THE PLAYERS Championship, Valspar Championship, World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies golf , Valero Texas Open – all of it cancelled by the Coronavirus. The Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship and therefore the Masters Tournament: postponed.
When will golf get going again? it had been anybody’s guess.
“See ya next time,” Ryan Palmer said as he dropped his bags off with Ben Hulka, who together with his wife, Heidi, runs Hulk, Inc, the shipping business started by Ben’s father, Steve, in 2003.
See ya next time – when will that be? And what is going to Hulka do together with his trailer filled with luggage marked PALMER and FOWLER and HOFFMAN and KISNER then on?
“It’ll attend Lot 6 here,” said Hulka, who had been scheduled to caddie for C.T. Pan before Pan withdrew Thursday. “We’ll fly home to Phoenix, then come here and obtain the trailer and take it to wherever we begin again, which can be hopefully somewhere on the East Coast .”
At the foot of the clubhouse steps, players stopped to speak to reporters as they came in to gather their things. Jon Rahm, in gray sweats and black hoodie, his hat on backward, paused at the highest of the steps on his answer to permit Jhonattan Vegas to expire his way in.
Tommy Fleetwood, standing on the clubhouse lawn, swung a golf club in slow-motion as he waited to be interviewed for TV. a person during a light blue PGA TOUR LIVE sport shirt packed up a headset while another man during a navy Sky Sports top coiled cable.
Armour’s ride pulled up, a car driven by Eric Hilcoff, who coordinates travel for the PGA TOUR. He had been up until 1 a.m., rebooking flights. He wore a green-and-yellow Oregon lacrosse cap. His daughter, a freshman, plays for the Ducks, but their season, too, is now on hold a bit like the TOUR and each other major sports league. “She’s crushed,” Hilcoff said.
That was a standard sentiment at Sawgrass, where even the knockout roses on the trail to the 17th green looked somehow forlorn. The green featured an equivalent back hole location because the day before, and NBC’s tiny camera remained buried within the hole’s hula-hoop-sized pot bunker.
In the hazard that has ended numerous dreams, a fish rose for a bug. On Capitol Hill that would’ve been dotted with fans, two EMTs rode by on mountain bikes. Workers hauled flowers from a company chalet and set them on a maintenance cart before speeding off, their motor breaking the silence.
World No. 1 and two-time FedExCup champion Rory McIlroy wouldn't get to undertake and become the primary player to successfully defend his title, and Matsuyama wouldn't get to undertake to follow up his 9-under opening round. The sun shone and therefore the temperature climbed. it had been a gorgeous , terrible day for golf.
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