Masters Postponed: The Players, Valspar, Dell Cancelled Due to COVID-19

Golf has decided to make some changes to their schedule in response to COVID-19, including the cancelling of The Players Championship as well as postponing The Masters.

The golf world is going to look vastly different over the next month or so. The Players Championship was cancelled after the first round. Adding to that, the Valspar, WGC-Dell, and the Valero are cancelled as well. Meanwhile, The Masters is currently postponed.

"“Today’s overreaction could look like tomorrow’s underreaction,”"

Rory McIlroy said this about the cancellation of The Players, Valspar and Dell Match Play golf tournaments as well as other events due to fears of COVID19.

Additional tournaments run by the PGA Tour are also cancelled through the date of the Dell Match Play. So far as the PGA Tour knows, no player has it, and no one at the PGA Tour has it. But there were other concerns above and beyond the players and the staff at headquarters.

The week that started with round one of golf at The Players, suddenly became round two through round four with no fans and then morphed into no tournament at all by Thursday evening at 9:50 when the PGA Tour sent texts to the golfers. Some, like McIlroy, were already asleep when the text was sent and did not even know about it until they got up Friday morning and checked their phones.

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PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan held a press conference at 8 A.M. Friday to explain the change in thinking. Basically, what pushed the PGA Tour to cancel The Players was the closing of Disney World and Universal Studios, two of the largest tourist draws in Florida late in the day on Thursday.

"“When you looked to that moment in time where you have two theme parks that are located between Jacksonville and Tampa cancel, to me that really was the thing that was the final thing that we had heard that said, you know what, even though we feel like we have a safe environment and we’ve done all the right things, we can’t proceed, and it’s not right to proceed,” Monahan said. “Those two things together were really the things that drove the decision.”"

Many golfers commented on Friday morning as they went to the clubhouse to retrieve their clubs. All felt that it was the right thing to do.

"“To me it almost seemed like it was just inevitable as far as where things were heading across our country in sports and through different organizations and things like that,” Rickie Fowler said Friday morning."

Justin Thomas was in agreement.

"“Selfishly I want to play, but this is way, way beyond that,” he said. “You have to take a lot of other factors and measures into consideration here. And the safety and health of everybody else involved in the tournament is the number one priority.”“I don’t think there was really any other way,” Bryson DeChambeau noted. “We’re trying to do our best to show our appreciation and respect to the sponsors of this event and people that work for the event and make sure that it’s done in the right way.”"

While the golfers don’t feel that they would suffer should they catch the virus, many, like Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm, have elderly relatives who are of concern to them.

"“I’m pretty scared because there’s quite a bit of people in my family with asthma,” Rahm said, “and my 85-year-old grandma being one of them, which is a direct target. And there’s nothing I can do because I can’t go home, I can’t come back.”"

Rahm is from Spain, and while he could go there, he might need special help to get back to the U.S. to continue to play professional golf because of the travel restrictions on people coming from Europe. Rahm is married to an American citizen, and that might help him make the trip and return.

"“I think it’s a hard one because you look at volunteers out here and a lot of volunteers are in their 60s and 70’s and retired and you don’t want someone that’s got the virus that passes it on to them and then they’re susceptible,” McIlroy said about the situation. “My mother’s got respiratory issues and I certainly don’t want to get something and pass it on to her and all of a sudden there’s some sort of complication.”"

Many foreign pros, those not living in the U.K. at least, might have difficulty coming back to the states to play on the PGA Tour because of the temporary travel restrictions on visitors to the U.S. from European countries that are not part of the U.K., as well as the list of 26 countries that are on the State Department’s no go list, including golf power South Korea.

The ban could also affect players like Francesco Molinari from Italy and Henrik Stenson from Sweden. To continue to play on the PGA Tour, they may need to remain in the U.S. for now, until the travel ban is lifted.

Making matters more interesting for all professional golfers is the fact that Augusta National GC announced this morning that the Masters is being postponed. The difference with the Masters is that they did not say cancelled. In addition, the Drive, Chip, and Putt contest and the women’s amateur tournament, started last year, are also postponed.

Because of the kind of grass on the golf course at Augusta National, it is unlikely that play could resume before sometime in October. The base grass is a Bermuda, and for the Masters, they overseed with another variety of grass. The overseeding has to be done while evening temperatures are still warm enough for the grass to germinate and grow. That varies with latitude.

For example, in Ponte Vedra Beach, for The Players, the overseed would likely take place in October or early November. Then in the cool season, grass would grow within about three weeks and be ready for play.

However, it means the Masters could move to late October or November date, depending on what the overall golf calendar allows.

For now, commissioner Monahan suggested that golf fans take this time out to go outside in the fresh air and play some golf, support the industry and know that the PGA Tour will return as soon as it is possible for it to do so.

For more information about COVID-19, visit the CDC’s website or the website for your state’s Department of Health.