Ken Borland

Top South African golfer Justin Harding says he faces a predicament in arranging his schedule once professional golf resumes because he plays in both Europe and the United States and has to juggle their mussed up schedules with the quarantine and travel regulations of the various countries hosting events.

It is a problem facing many golfers as the U.S. PGA Tour hopes to resurrect their schedule on June 11 with the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial and the European Tour is supposedly going to start again at the end of July with a run of events in the United Kingdom. But many of the world’s top golfers hop between the European and American tours, which now becomes a logistical nightmare with all the quarantining and testing that will be required for international travel.

“The European Tour is going to try put on four or five weeks of action in the UK, and hopefully there will be reduced quarantine measures by the end of that otherwise it’s going to be a scheduling nightmare. If you want to play in America you have to go 14 days beforehand, and going to Europe you also need 14 days’ quarantine. The PGA Championship is scheduled for the second week of August, so if you play in the British Masters from July 23 then you miss the quarantine deadline.

“The Korn Ferry Tour [the secondary U.S. tour for which Harding has full status] sent out a 57-page memorandum on the different regulations for when they start on June 8, but I have no intention of playing a full schedule on that tour. I need the world ranking points from the European Tour, and it doesn’t make sense quarantining for six weeks just to play three tournaments,” Harding said in a recent Sunshine Tour virtual press conference.

And before one accuses the 34-year-old world number 111 of being lazy, it is a viewpoint shared by many other golfers and Harding has proven his credentials by playing all over the world in recent years. One trip to the United States that he is willing to make, however, is for the Masters, which has been rescheduled for November 12-15. Harding made an impressive debut at the Masters last year, finishing in a tie for 12^th just five shots behind winner Tiger Woods, earning himself an invitation for this year’s Major.

“I’m certainly happy that the Masters wasn’t cancelled like the Open Championship! I’m dying to go back again and I wasn’t in a great run of form when we stopped playing golf but hopefully I can go to Augusta in November and be competitive. It’s a very strategic course and you need to put the ball in the right places. But I have no idea what the course will be like at that time of year.

“I’m sure Augusta will look different, I think it will be quite firm after it was quite wet last year. It will also be the debuts of Erik van Rensburg and Christiaan Bezuidenhout there so that’s going to be good fun. I think they’re the most upset about golf being suspended because they were both flying! Whereas I had had a dip in form which I was trying to play through, so the 10-week break might be good for me,” Harding said.

GolfRSA have sought clarity from government over the status of golf courses and clubs when South Africa’s Covid-19 Lockdown is eased to Level III on June 1, after the spread of rumours on social media that while Sunshine Tour professionals will be able to resume competition, golf courses and clubs will remain closed for amateur or recreational golf.

Officials from GolfRSA, which runs all golf in the country and technically even represent the professionals of the Sunshine Tour, are known to have had discussions on Monday afternoon with Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture Nathi Mthethwa but will not comment further than the statement they issued prior to that conversation on Monday.

“Following President Ramaphosa’s speech on Sunday night …, GolfRSA – on behalf of the delegation representing the golf industry – is waiting for the Level III Lockdown regulations to be gazetted before making any comment. Meanwhile, we are urgently seeking clarity on golf’s position from government,” the statement read.

The Level III regulations could be published as quickly as Tuesday.

GolfRSA have previously submitted a proposal for the reopening of golf courses and clubs to the minister, which he then took to the Command Council. Insiders have told The Citizen that the submission focused on the obvious reasons for allowing golf to be played, such as the safety of the sport in terms of social distancing, all the studies which indicate it is a valuable source of exercise, and the socio-economic factors. Re-opening courses and clubs would allow more than 40 000 people, many of them vulnerable low-income workers, to return to work. The golf industry as a whole employs more than 250 000 people.

The long suspension of golf has seen eight clubs permanently close their doors and 34 others are considering retrenchments.

In terms of professional golf, the U.S. PGA Tour will kick off with the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, from June 11, but it’s going to be a long wait for the many South Africans on the European Tour, which will restart with the British Masters from July 23. Both tours will return to play without any spectators allowed.

The Sunshine Tour are believed to feel it is more important to get amateur and recreational golf up and running first because the professional game is not keen to play without spectators.

“You have got to understand that you have a debt to society,” the great Gary Player said when asked what message he would give to American golfers playing for millions of dollars every weekend on the U.S. PGA Tour. And then the 84-year-old nine-time Major winner and Grand Slam champion took a potshot at the lack of American golfers playing in the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City.

The U.S. PGA Tour offered more than $375 million of prizemoney for 46 official events last year, with order of merit winner Brooks Koepka taking home $9,684,006.

The Nedbank Golf Challenge, of which Player is the host, is part of the prestigious Rolex Series on the European Tour and the winner gets $2.5 million, one of the biggest prizes in world golf. But there was only one American in the field last year in David Lipsky, the world number 193 at the time, who plays mostly on the European Tour. In 2018, not a single American accepted the invitation.

“I’m in favour of the guys making as much money as they can but when you consider that I won just $45 000 for winning the PGA Championship in 1972 then it’s fair to say we worked so hard in those days so they could win big money. You’ve got to understand you have a debt to society and so many golfers do a fine job and golf is the greatest catalyst for charitable giving.

“But Sun City offered the biggest prize ever last year and there was not one American who played. They wanted 5-6 million dollars just to play. I would have rowed over from America for that kind of money! I would tell them you are not fulfilling your debt to promote the game that enabled you to live the way you do,” Player said on Thursday night in a webinar hosted by Citadel Investment Services.

South Africa’s Sportsman of the 20^th Century also said to count him amongst those players who have said this year’s Ryder Cup must be played with spectators allowed or be postponed. The biennial match between the United States and Europe is scheduled for September 25-27 at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, but there have been suggestions it will have to be played without galleries, a move which has been rejected by golfers on both sides of the Atlantic.

“The Ryder Cup is a hard call. I never played in it for obvious reasons, but I can understand both sides. The sponsors put in a lot of money and the tournament wouldn’t exist without them, or the media too. Sponsors and the media are the reason why golfers nowadays play for absurd amounts of money.

“But the whole enthusiasm of the Ryder Cup is such that if there was just a deathly silence you wouldn’t want to play. So I’m with the players on this, but my heart bleeds for the sponsors and media. But the tournament can be delayed, rather do that like they’ve done with the U.S. Open and the Masters. Golfers will also have to make sacrifices and play over Christmas or whenever,” Player said.

People may soon be permitted to play golf as the Covid-19 Lockdown regulations are eased, but for professional golfers it is likely that they will only return to competition in the summer.

The massive interruption to global golf will have a ripple effect and South Africa’s major tournaments such as the Nedbank Golf Challenge are now only likely to take place close to the end of the year. Complicating matters is the fact that the Masters is now scheduled to take place from November 12-15, which was when this year’s Sun City mega-event was meant to be held.

“Golf RSA and the PGA have sent a proposal to the minister of sport about opening golf courses for amateur use, but when we will be able to host a professional event, we just don’t know. Golf clubs are going to be a lot stricter when they reopen – things like two-balls only and no caddies – and that proposal doesn’t help us yet,” Thomas Abt, the deputy commissioner of the Sunshine Tour, told The Citizen.

“As far as the Sunshine Tour goes, we need the people element at golf. The golfers will be willing to do their thing behind closed doors, but the sponsors want the camaraderie of the Pro-Am and the hospitality opportunities, so it is very difficult to sell golf without any spectators to them.

“As far as the Nedbank Golf Challenge goes, we are engaging with the European Tour, Nedbank and Sun International, and it looks like we will change the date to a couple of weeks later. That cannot be 100% confirmed though until we see a potential world calendar. The U.S. PGA is meant to start on June 8 and the European Tour is hoping to get back underway in August.

“But they will initially be playing behind closed doors because they have certain brands who are happy to do that. Hopefully here in South Africa we will be all ready to go by the end of the year,” Abt said.

The deputy commissioner said that there is a big push within the Sunshine Tour to make watching golf – either on TV or at the course – more attractive to the younger generation. To that end, they have been running virtual matches between Sunshine Tour pros using a digitised version of Glendower Golf Club on PlayStation’s The Golf Club game.

“The biggest thing is that we have a captive audience that loves pro golf but we’re also looking outside that to a younger viewership. We need to move out of our boundaries, push the boundaries a bit and the public seem to love it. People want to hear how the golfers approach a course like Glendower, they want to see the personalities, what sort of guy Brandon Stone really is for instance.

“Women’s tennis has the youngest viewership globally while golf on TV is currently watched by people aged 55 and over. Which is why we are heavily moving into things like Instagram as well to take golf to a much younger market, which allows for more longevity in terms of support. We do these things for fun but at the end of the day the economic climate shows the importance of them,” Abt said.