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Having successfully navigated a year unlike any other, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan is encouraged about the possibilities for 2021 while acknowledging a return to normalcy is likely many months away.
“To me, the challenge is the opportunity because there is such momentum behind our sport,” Monahan said last week in a season-ending media call.
With the PGA Tour season set to resume in Hawaii in early January, tournaments will continue to operate without fans for the foreseeable future. There will be extremely limited numbers of spectators allowed at some West Coast events (a few hundred at most) though the Waste Management Phoenix Open is planning to have as many as 8,000 fans a day.
By the time the tour heads to Florida in early March, it’s possible larger numbers will be allowed on site, though Monahan said it’s too early to know.
“I would expect that when we return to Florida, I would be hopeful … we'll be able to continue on the path that we've been on where we're playing pro-ams, we have our corporate hospitality program and our title sponsors are able to use a platform to drive their business and that we are safely reintroducing fans,” Monahan said.
“I think you'll just see a slow and steady increase in the number of fans that we have on-site, but again, we won't be the sole arbiter in that. Any steps that we take we'll be doing in concert with our partners in the local communities where we play.”
Despite a 91-day shutdown and the absence of fans when the tour restarted in June, Monahan said the tour will contribute approximately $160 million to charity in 2020, down from $204 million in 2019.
With the arrival of a vaccine, Monahan said he would not mandate players take the vaccine, believing it is a personal decision.
Monahan also announced that beginning in 2022, Workday will replace Nationwide as the presenting sponsor of the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village. Under the new sponsorship, Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation created by NBA star Steph Curry and his wife, Ayesha, will be the primary beneficiary.
There had been efforts to create a San Francisco-based tournament with Curry as the host but that has not come to fruition at this point.
Ron Green Jr.