The Players 2020

Never mid Jordan, who would have thought Justin would be hovering around the three figure mark for a big event? Agree that Bryson has a strong shout although hard to back one that short in this quality of field.  Most winners here have been repeat tour winners and classy operators and I'm not seeing all that much to be wild about among the outsiders as yet.

Hard to believe a year ago Molinari was arguably the main man in golf - won API had been the main man at the ryder cup won the open and as he reached the 12th tee at augusta looked destined to add the Masters.

Can be backed at 350!

Some whopping prices around

I am going to start with some small plays on 3 players I don't particularly like - Reed, Kuch and Garcia and a hail Mary on Day-  no doubt he'll be the walking wounded as usual, but sometimes he has a decent go after having a WD. Hopefully as exciting as the last few weeks have been-  Florida swing has been great.

We've all seen Day do his Lazarus routine so certainly not a daft punt at all. The Florida swing is the highlight of the US calendar now for sure, even with weaker fields it beats the play-offs for excitement.  And assuming there's no bad news about Valspar at least we can be happy they've got it in before events start looking iffy for the next while.

We may get a second crack at Sawgrass this year, it's being eyed as a venue replacement for the PGA is coronavirus takes hold in San Fran. From a purely golf perspective, that would be fine by me.

I read that, would be very strange having a return trip to Sawgrass, you wonder what the PGA could do to differentiate it from this weekend.  I guess it makes sense if San Francisco pulls the plug on public gatherings that Sawgrass is one of the few courses with ready-made infrastructure that could host last-minute but when the PGA push the Players as the 5th major and the PGA is by a distance the weak 4th major you wonder if the PGA would want to invite a direct comparison between the two.  They might rather postpone til the end of the year.

The international cancellations on the Euro Tour perfectly understandable but they've just cancelled the Czech Masters, and that wasn't due til late August. That's a pretty pessimistic view of the spread and duration of the virus!  If they're right we're in for a golf-free summer.

Despite SXSW being cancelled - the matchplay is still on for now.

I'm pretty doubtful about the Matchplay, even though it's very different from SXSW in that it's not mostly cramped and indoors and doesn't involve travellers from around the world. It might be more about the appearance of doing something rather than it needing to be done.

Think it's pretty certain not to be business as usual the rest of the summer but the key question is whether the PGA Tour and the majors attempt to go ahead fan-free or just cancel or postpone their events. I think events would still be fine fan-free but then if local authorities ban gatherings of, say 1000 or more even without fans I'm not sure a tour event could get below that number with all the personnel required.

SF just banned gatherings of 1000 or more. Only for two weeks but they're not going to lift it until we're out of the woods so not looking good for the PGA.

Think sporting events will be soon be decimated it wont be long before athletes/players etc contract the virus.

The tour may be able to continue behind closed doors for a while but that will only last so long if lockdowns are put in place. Players wont be able to travel.

If the PGA were to relocate the event then the last two weeks have shown two different courses that are perfectly well set up to hold a major. I suspect what will happen is that the tour is postponed with a month probably after valspar and may not resume for sometime. The european tour looks a right off after this week only one event scheduled until nearly the end of May.

The Golden State Warriors first announced they would be playing in empty stadium, so San Fran obviously in trouble. Within 8 hours the NBA season has been postponed after Rudy Gobert (Utah Jazz all-star) has been confirmed as having contacted the virus. 

Hopefully the PGA tour can continue on empty courses, better that than nothing at all.

Getting worse by the day though, the flow on effect from a mass cancellation of sporting event is massive, all the way down to food vendors, cleaning/security/ticketing staff, merchandise etc.

What happens to ESPN and the likes? What happens to Betfair?

S. Garcia @ 80/1
J. Walker @ 300/1

JT, Bryson, Xander, Na, Homa and Burns for me this week.

Any weather edges?
Early/Late - Late/Early?
Cheers,

No sign of any weather edge.  Going ahead, but they are keeping an eye on the virus situation and making another announcement at 4pm our time.  More likely to be about letting fans in days 2-4 but the way things are escalating across all sports there's no guarantee this finishes.

Cheers TB.
Fingers crossed.

Great start for Knox. 4 putted from 5 feet.

PGA Tour events still going ahead but without fans, essential personnel only.  Thought they'd be cancelled after this so that's a bonus. I'm still a bit dubious as sooner or later players themselves will be affected as they have been in other sports at which point they surely have to pull the plug.

Hideki's certainly hoping they don't abandon this early.

Going to be weird watching without fans. Do you think it would make any difference to a players nerves on payday?

Yeah, could do.  No human backstopping / trampled down rough either, they might actually need to hit it on the golf course.

lol yeah no little fway bounce off some poor unsuspecting spectator. Very intrigued about what the Masters will do - will they even contemplate a Masters without punters? sorry, patrons

I think the Masters would go ahead without patrons.  The green jackets would love having the place to themselves. But I also think it's highly likely that by Augusta some players will either have it or be self-isolating after contact with someone who does, at which point I think we're looking at the sport being pretty much shut down for a while.

I hate to agree with you TB but yeah I think it is inevitable there is a gap in the schedule for a while - The Open near my hometown too

Who knows what the situation will be by late July? Numbers are already declining in China, and life has to go back to normal at some point. If this is so bad that a golf tournament in 4 months time can't go ahead then golf is probably the least of our upcoming worries.

Are there any players qualified for the Masters that currently aren't in the country? With the travel ban they won't be able to come in without a special consideration.

Westwood for sure.  Sandy Lyle might struggle.

If Westwood is in the UK he might be ok, it's just continental Europe that's banned at the moment isn't it?

As you say TB we'll see - but I imagine a huge part of declining numbers in China is they are authoritarian, so they are well practiced in curtailing human movement etc - the UK effort is lackluster imo

People from, or have been in schengen countries past 30 days I think rhino

Yeah, good point about Westwood. Tough one if you're a guy like Victor Perez, if you want to play the Masters you basically have to hole up in the US for the next month rather than go home.

The actual golf is no rosier for me right now-  my army of tw@ts doing nothing - that's the double whammy when you back players you dislike!

Managed to get on Hideki at te right time so will be a decent day for me, quite hard to concentrate with everything else going on so no real major plays so far.

You wanna see lackluster come to Oz Hank. The Grand Prix is going ahead this weekend with no restrictions whatsoever. This seems mental.

Yeah I saw that - very odd considering what the rest of the sporting world is doing

The way US Sports have all packed up over the last 24 hours I'm not even sure now this gets finished even without fans. PGA Tour are really out on a limb now.

drive for show putt for dough 11 Mar 20 21:23 
Think sporting events will be soon be decimated it wont be long before athletes/players etc contract the virus.

The tour may be able to continue behind closed doors for a while but that will only last so long if lockdowns are put in place. Players wont be able to travel.

If the PGA were to relocate the event then the last two weeks have shown two different courses that are perfectly well set up to hold a major. I suspect what will happen is that the tour is postponed with a month probably after valspar and may not resume for sometime. The european tour looks a right off after this week only one event scheduled until nearly the end of May.

Didn't even make it to Friday

Spare a thought of sungjae Im tonight - what we will do with himself if he cant tee it up for a month