Ryder Cup postponement could be bad news for Shriners Open

The announcement Wednesday that this year’s Ryder Cup has been pushed back a year not only impacts golf’s premier team event, there also is a trickle-down effect on other tournaments and players.

Chief among them is the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, slated for Oct. 5-11 at TPC Summerlin, which falls just two weeks after what would have been the Ryder Cup. That now empty spot on the schedule could have an impact on whether some of the top players choose to come to Las Vegas this year.

Tournament Executive Director Patrick Lindsey had been hopeful that many of the top players might choose to continue playing following the Ryder Cup and add Las Vegas to their schedules. But with the Ryder Cup now postponed, that chance is less likely, particularly for European standouts who now may head home after the U.S. Open ends Sept. 20.

The Shriners does stand out as the last opportunity for players to compete in the U.S. before the Tour heads to Asia for three weeks, and Lindsey believes that will help draw a strong field to Las Vegas.

As for the Ryder Cup, officials said it had become obvious in recent weeks that postponing the event was the only logical choice.

“We’really wanted to play this,” PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh said. “We tried everything we could to make it happen.”

With the COVID-19 pandemic exploding across the country, Waugh said having fans at Whistling Straits Golf Club in Wisconsin was not an option. And playing without fans was a choice Waugh and his European counterparts didn’t want to pursue.

“A Ryder Cup without fans is not a Ryder Cup,” Waugh said. “It is one event that is uniquely about the fans.”

“We didn’t want to dilute the magic of a great occasion,” said Guy Kinnings, deputy CEO of the European Tour.

Kinnings noted one silver lining of pushing the event back one year is it gives both teams the chance to field their best teams with a full season of qualifying. With half of the 2020 tournaments wiped away by the pandemic, the number of opportunities for golfers to play their way onto the team were limited.

Having a full season to earn points will certainly help a number of players, including a handful of newcomers already making their mark on the PGA Tour. At the top of the list is Las Vegas resident Collin Morikawa, who left Cal last summer, turned pro and almost immediately won the Barracuda Championship. He’s added three second-place finishes and is in contention again this weekend at the Workday Charity Open.

Despite his success, Morikawa is only 16th in the U.S. points race and had little chance of making this year’s team. With another year to build his resume, Morikawa’s chances of making the Ryder Cup team greatly improve.

Chip Shots

— When the PGA Tour returned in early June, initial plans called for the first four events to be played without fans. But now five weeks into the schedule there still are no fans, and none coming in the foreseeable future. The next five weeks will be played on empty courses, including the PGA Championship in San Francisco. It will be mid-August at the earliest before the first spectators are allowed, but even that remains a question mark.

— All of the game’s biggest stars have been playing throughout the PGA Tour’s return — with one big exception. That changes next week as Tiger Woods is in the field at The Memorial, an event he’s won five times. Which Woods will show up is the big question. He has played just twice in 2020, in San Diego in January where he tied for ninth, and in Los Angeles in February where he finished 68th, last among all players who made the cut.

Greg Robertson is a freelance reporter who covers golf for the Review-Journal. He can be reached at robertsongt@gmail.com.