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Early Friday morning, Sergio García sat behind the wheel of an SUV in the parking lot at the TPC Sawgrass clubhouse, the driver’s side door open and a lost look on his face.
It was a strange moment on a strange day in a strange week in a very strange time.
The Players Championship had been cancelled with a text message to players around 9:50 p.m. the night before and professional golf officially paused, uncertain when it will begin again.
No one knew quite what to feel or what to do and García was no different.
“We haven’t lived through anything like this,” García said, looking at the ground. “We have to take care of ourselves and there’s a lot of things to figure out.”
That doesn’t make golf any different than most of the rest of the world but the cancellation of what commissioner Jay Monahan called the PGA Tour’s Super Bowl after one almost-complete round was part of a cascading confluence of events that had the world spinning like water going down a drain.
Along with the Players, the tour cancelled its next three tournaments. The LPGA Tour and European Tour already had taken similar extreme measures. Then came word the Masters will not be played this April and it felt as if the earth moved.
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As García prepared to pull away, Friday morning was coming to life. There was a soft warmth to the early spring air. Patches of purple and yellow flowers were set in beds with crisp edges. Flags and banners were waiting on a breeze.
Golf called.
But the game stood still.
It needed a moment, an extended moment, and that moment had arrived.
It’s easy, almost cliché, to say what is happening with the coronavirus is bigger than golf. It’s true. What most of us had never heard of two months ago has brought the world skidding to a halt. There is the illness itself, there is fear, there is precaution and there is an overriding sense of uncertainty about what this means, how bad it could be and when might it be over.
Suddenly, that tee shot on the famous par-3 17th hole didn’t seem so scary.
Remember when it seemed like big news that Tiger Woods was skipping the Players Championship?
So where does golf fit in?
It finds its place, its relevance in being what it is – a game that’s not as much about the shots that are hit as it is about the people who play it. Golf is about faces and places, memories and moments, swings and misses.
It’s a game that’s built on a simple premise that seems particularly important now – it’s about doing the right thing.
That’s what Monahan did when he decided the Players Championship should not continue. He did the right thing when he let the tournament begin, having been given assurances from the White House down to local leaders that it was not necessary to cancel the event.
When Monahan was asked Friday morning what had changed, he could have simply said, “The world.”
It has changed every day since Friday and who knows when it will feel normal again?
Sometimes being courageous means doing what is inconvenient. LPGA Tour commissioner Mike Whan understands that. So do Monahan and Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley.
“In a few weeks time if everything dies down and is OK, it’s still the right decision,” Rory McIlroy, the voice of golf today, said Friday morning.
Getting there never was going to be easy because this is a path no one has walked.
The game hasn’t stopped. Tournament golf has paused. Finding a few hours to get outside and play a few holes, that’s still a good prescription, perhaps more effective now than ever.
I spent Saturday morning at my local club, walking 18 holes with three guys I hadn’t known until we teed off together. We talked about the world around us and the uncertainty that seems to have crept into every corner of daily life.
The gravity of what we’re facing hasn’t been lost but neither has what draws us to golf in the first place.
We made some pars, a lot of bogeys and precious few birdies. We talked about school closings and working from home, we talked about what it might feel like if the Masters were played in October and we talked about how soon the dormant Bermuda fairways will be green again.
When we finished, we bumped elbows instead of shaking hands and someone said “social distancing” would have made a great Seinfeld episode.
In the grill room, the Saturday morning crowd was settling bets and wondering how weekend afternoons would feel without some golf to watch.
Listening to García on Friday morning, it was somber and sobering. A day later – like at any number of courses around the country – reality was resting on everyone’s shoulder but there was a joy around the golf course.
Maybe it was an appreciation for feeling healthy and being fortunate enough to play golf but it felt like it was a little more than that. The gravity of what we’re facing hasn’t been lost but neither has what draws us to golf in the first place.
It’s an amazing game, especially at a time like this when almost nothing feels like it did. It’s still just as difficult, still just as rewarding and still just as demanding.
The game asks us to do our best and play by the simple notion of doing the right thing.
That’s what professional golf did last week.
As García closed the door and drove away, leaving behind an empty golf course, the sun was coming up.
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