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PGA Tour cancels Players Championship

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From a statement released just after midnight to a tweet posted at 10 p.m., it’s been a wild day for the PGA Tour and its public messaging regarding the coronavirus.

After initially announcing plans to carry on with its flagship event, The Players Championship, in the aforementioned midnight message, to a mid-day declaration that the tournament would continue sans fans, the Tour has elected to cancel the event completely (and all events through the Valero Texas Open).

PGATour.com staff posted the following message at 10 p.m. ET, Thursday night.

“It is with regret that we are announcing the cancellation of THE PLAYERS Championship.”

“We have also decided to cancel all PGA TOUR events – across all of our Tours – in the coming weeks, through the Valero Texas Open.”

“We have pledged from the start to be responsible, thoughtful and transparent with our decision process. We did everything possible to create a safe environment for our players in order to continue the event throughout the weekend, and we were endeavoring to give our fans a much-needed respite from the current climate. But at this point – and as the situation continues to rapidly change – the right thing to do for our players and our fans is to pause.”

The Tour indicated Monahan will make additional comments Friday morning.

The Masters is scheduled to begin April 9.

**UPDATE**

At 8 a.m. ET on Friday, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan spoke to members of the media where he further explained the decision to cancel the tour through the Valero Texas Open.

Speaking on the decision to cancel the event, Monahan said that Disney’s move to shut down their theme parks and Universal Studios doing the same played a role, before adding

“To cancel it is a really hard decision. It’s gut-wrenching. When you’re affecting so many people’s lives – that weighs heavily on you. “

The tour chief stressed that there was no possibility of The 2020 Players being rescheduled for another date and that the PGA Tour will pay out 50 percent of The Players purse (7.5 million)—equally distributed among the field.

Monahan expressed that postponement, rather than the cancellation of the event, was considered but that they had no “purview as to what was going to develop” and that they thought “this was the right thing to do.”

The tour chief also added that they are operating as if they are playing the RBC Heritage, which takes place from April 16-19.

Watch Jay Monahan’s entire press conference from Friday morning here.

 

 

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GolfWRX Editor-in-Chief

20 Comments

20 Comments

  1. Nack Jicklaus

    Mar 14, 2020 at 12:04 pm

    First we had to wipe our butt’s with whatever we can scrounge up, now We can’t watch golf on tv???? Society is collapsing.

  2. Johnny Penso

    Mar 13, 2020 at 10:40 pm

    Dumb decision. Unless people are going home and bolting the door, decisions like this will do nothing to help the situation. Players will still go to the range with their caddies, volunteers will still be living their lives as will all the staff that attend the event. Keeping the spectators away just because of the sheer volume was the right play. Cancelling the event is just stupid.

  3. ViralGolf2020

    Mar 13, 2020 at 9:47 pm

    Isn’t it amazing how all the medical professionals in the world can be wrong – and a bunch of semi-illiterate a-holes on a golf site know better?

    • A. Commoner

      Mar 15, 2020 at 10:25 am

      Great comment. Suspect a huge number of people would agree with your point.

  4. d

    Mar 13, 2020 at 11:16 am

    I just heard pga commish say why they canceled pga champ. espn interview. espn had to ask twice cause he didnt give a solid reason. basically said everyone else was cancelling everything so they did….there you go….

  5. dat

    Mar 13, 2020 at 9:10 am

    Hold it without the crowds. Same goes for the majors. If they cancel the Masters I’m done.

    • Bubbert

      Mar 13, 2020 at 10:17 am

      Masters just got postponed (not cancelled).

  6. Logic

    Mar 13, 2020 at 8:47 am

    There are only 1300 confirmed cases out of 327 million people. This is dumb. We had more cases of measles last year and we didn’t shut the world down.

    • Richthed

      Mar 13, 2020 at 9:19 am

      There’s a vaccine for that one, silly. This is different. Developed places don’t care about what they are protected from.

      • Thanks

        Mar 13, 2020 at 9:25 am

        The Flu vaccine gets the strain wrong all the time. This is gonna spread but we shouldn’t turn the country upside down for what amounts to the flu

    • Moosejaw McWilligher

      Mar 13, 2020 at 11:47 am

      Typical conservative nearsightedness and stupidity.

      Have you ever heard of “Italy” or “China”? If we want THAT to happen in the USA, then, yes, we should be defiant inbred morons and ignore ALL of the data and advice from the experts…

      T-hole, by the way, is NOT an expert in ANYTHING.

      What a bunch of snowflakes – waa waa my little millionaire pitch and putt playtime isn’t on TV this week.

    • Moosejaw McWilligher

      Mar 13, 2020 at 10:05 pm

      “Logic” –

      there have been 1629 cases in the US, 41 have died *so far*. More of those 1629 may still die. That death rate is 2.5%. Extrapolating, if 100,000 people contract it, 2500 would die.

      There have been reported cases in 47 states as of today. People cannot quarantine themselves until they know (or admit) they might be infected. Our so-called leader’s obfuscation of the problem caused serious delays in our response which will have an impact.

      In China, 80,000 cases, over 3,000 dead. Closer to 5%.

      Golf pros are on airplanes at least once a week, they have contact with hundreds of fans every day, and they come from every state and every country. They are both highly at-risk themselves (which may be unlikely to kill them) but are also perfect carriers, to their family, friends, each other, fans, caddies, tourney workers, etc.

      People who don’t understand “prevention” probably have more kids than they intended, and probably still think tr*ckle-down economics works.

  7. Gurn

    Mar 13, 2020 at 7:03 am

    They were already there!

    Ban the fans.
    No caddies.
    And have the greatest 1 club tourney in the world !

    Sad!

  8. Jim

    Mar 13, 2020 at 6:45 am

    Snowflakes and lawyers…we can live without both … what a farce!

  9. Warren Gray

    Mar 13, 2020 at 5:47 am

    P.C. and fear of Litigation gone out of control

  10. Jbone

    Mar 13, 2020 at 5:44 am

    Media are blowing this wildly out of proportion for political reasons

    • Joe

      Mar 13, 2020 at 6:46 am

      be careful the snowflake Golfwrx moderators will find you and ban you for LIFE…no pro-American comments will be tolerated by the left-wing mods!

  11. Drew

    Mar 12, 2020 at 10:23 pm

    Everyones already there. Why not just finish the event and then start the cancelations afterward? Maybe I’m just a bumming golf fan that was really looking forward to this weekend…

    • Scott Blandford

      Mar 12, 2020 at 10:50 pm

      I am in the U.K. and wish we had the same mind set as America. I went to college in America on a soccer scholarship and spent 5 years in the country. So I see it from both angles. Your government are taking this seriously, it’s sport. They are making the decisions. There will always be a later date to play this amazing event. I watch golf religiously every week so it will be a miss But this is serious. When there are deaths and it is so rampant, life comes before all!

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Photos from the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship

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GolfWRX is live this week at the Wells Fargo Championship as a field of the world’s best golfers descend upon Charlotte, North Carolina, hoping to tame the beast that is Quail Hollow Club in this Signature Event — only Scottie Scheffler, who is home awaiting the birth of his first child, is absent.

From the grounds at Quail Hollow, we have our usual assortment of general galleries and WITBs — including a look at left-hander Akshay Bhatia’s setup. Among the pullout albums, we have a look inside Cobra’s impressive new tour truck for you to check out. Also featured is a special look at Quail Hollow king, Rory McIlroy.

Be sure to check back throughout the week as we add more galleries.

General Albums

WITB Albums

Pullout Albums

See what GolfWRXers are saying about our Wells Fargo Championship photos in the forums.

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SuperStroke acquires Lamkin Grips

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SuperStroke announced today its purchase of 100-year-old grip maker Lamkin Grips, citing the company’s “heritage of innovation and quality.”

“It is with pride and great gratitude that we announce Lamkin, a golf club grip brand with a 100-year history of breakthrough design and trusted products, is now a part of the SuperStroke brand,” says SuperStroke CEO Dean Dingman. “We have always had the utmost respect for how the Lamkin family has put the needs and benefits of the golfer first in their grip designs. If there is a grip company that is most aligned with SuperStroke’s commitment to uncompromised research, design, and development to put the most useful performance tools in the hands of golfers, Lamkin has been that brand. It is an honor to bring Lamkin’s wealth of product innovation into the SuperStroke family.”

Elver B. Lamkin founded the company in 1925 and produced golf’s first leather grips. The company had been family-owned and operated since that point, producing a wide array of styles, such as the iconic Crossline.

According to a press release, “The acquisition of Lamkin grows and diversifies SuperStroke’s proven and popular array of grip offerings with technology grounded in providing golfers optimal feel and performance through cutting-edge design and use of materials, surface texture and shape.”

CEO Bob Lamkin will stay on as a board member and will continue to be involved with the company.

“SuperStroke has become one of the most proven, well-operated, and pioneering brands in golf grips and we could not be more confident that the Lamkin legacy, brand, and technology is in the best of hands to continue to innovate and lead under the guidance of Dean Dingman and his remarkably capable team,” Lamkin said.

Related: Check out our 2014 conversation with Bob Lamkin, here: Bob Lamkin on the wrap grip reborn, 90 years of history

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Tour Rundown: Pendrith, Otaegui, Longbella, and Dunlap soar

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Take it from a fellow who coaches high school golf in metro Toronto: there’s plenty of great golf played in the land of the maple leaf. All the greats have designed courses over the USA border: Colt, Whitman, Ross, Coore, Mackenzie, Doak, as well as the greatest of the land, Stanley Thompson. I’m partial to him, because he wore my middle name with grandeur. Enough about the architecture, because this week’s Tour Rundown begins with a newly-minted, Canadian champion on the PGA Tour. Something else that the great white north is known for, is weather. It impacted play on three of the world’s tours, forcing final-round cancellations on two of them.

It was an odd week in the golf world. The LPGA and the Korn Ferry were on a break, and only 13/15 of the rounds slated, were played. In the end, we have four champions to recognize, so let’s not delay any longer with minutiae about the game that we love. Let’s run it all down with this week’s Tour Rundown.

PGA Tour: TP takes TS at Byron’s place

The 1980s was a decade when a Canadian emergence was anticipated on the PGA Tour. It failed to materialize, but a path was carved for the next generation. Mike Weir captured the Masters in 2003, but no other countrymen joined him in his quest for PGA Tour conquest. 2024 may herald the long-awaited arrival of a Canadian squad of tour winners. Over the past few years, we’ve seen Nick Taylor break the fifty-plus year dearth of homebred champions at the Canadian Open, and players like Adam Hadwin, Corey Conners, Adam Svennson, and Mackenzie Hughes have etched their names into the PGA Tour’s annals of winners.

This week, Taylor Pendrith joined his mates with a one-shot win at TPC Craig Ranch, the home of the Byron Nelson Classic. Pendrith took a lead into the final round and, while the USA’s Jake Knapp faltered, held on for the slimmest of victories. Sweden’s Alex Noren posted six-under 65 on Sunday to move into third position, at 21-under par. Ben Kohles, a Texan, looked to break through for his first win in his home state. He took the lead from Pendrith at the 71st hole, on the strength of a second-consecutive birdie.

With victory in site, Kohles found a way to make bogey at the last, without submerging in the fronting water. His second shot was greenside, but he could not move his third to the putting surface. His fourth was five feet from par and a playoff, but his fifth failed to drop. Meanwhile, Pendrith was on the froghair in two, and calmly took two putts from 40 feet, for birdie. When Kohles missed for par, Pendrith had, at last, a PGA Tour title.

DP World Tour: China Open in Otaegui’s hands after canceled day four

It wasn’t the fourth round that was canceled in Shenzhen, but the third. Rains came on Saturday to Hidden Grace Golf Club, ensuring that momentum would cease. Sunday would instead be akin to a motorsports restart, with no sense of who might claim victory. Sebastian Soderberg, the hottest golfer on the Asian Swing, held the lead, but he would slip to a 72 on Sunday, and tie for third with Paul Waring and Joel Girrbach. Italy’s Guido Migliozzi completed play in 67 strokes on day three, moving one shot past the triumvirate, to 17-under par.

It was Spain’s Adrian Otaegui who persevered the best and played the purest. Otaegui was clean on the day, with seven birdies for 65. Even when Migliozzi ceased the lead at the 10th, Otaegui remained calm. With everything on the line, Migliozzi made bogey at the par-five 17th, as his principal competitor finished in birdie. To the Italian’s credit, he bounced back with birdie at the last, to claim solo second. The victory was Otaegui’s fifth on the DP World Tour, and first since October of 2022.

PGA Tour Americas: Quito’s rains gift title to Longbella

Across the world, superintendents and their staffs will do anything to prepare a course for play. Even after fierce, nightime rains, the Quito TG Club greeted the first four groups on Sunday. The rains worsened after 7 am, however, and the tour was forced to abort the final round of play. With scores reverting to Saturday’s numbers, Thomas Longbella’s one-shot advantage over Gunn Yang turned into a Tour Americas victory.

64 held the opening-day lead, and Longbella was not far off, with 66. Yang jumped to the top on day two, following a67 with 66. He posted 68 on day three, and anticipated a fierce, final-round duel for the title. As for Longbella, he fought off a ninth-hole bogey on Saturday with six birdies and a 17th-hole eagle. That rare bird proved to be the winning stroke, allowing Longbella to edge past Yang, and secure ultimate victory.

PGA Tour Champions: Dunlap survives Saturday stumble for win

Scott Dunlap did not finish Saturday as well as he might have liked. After beginning play near Houston with 65, Dunlap made two bogeys in his final found holes on day two, to finish at nine-under par. Hot on his heels was Joe Durant, owner of a March 2024 win on PGA Tour Champions. Just behind Durant was Stuart Appleby, perhaps vibing from his Sunday 59 at Greenbrier on this day in 2010. Neither would have a chance to track Dunlap down.

The rains that have forced emergency responders into action, to save hundreds of lives in the metro Houston area, ended hopes for a third day of play at The Woodlands. Dunlap had won once previously on Tour Champions, in 2014 in Washington state. Ten years later, Dunlap was the fortunate recipient of a canceled final round, and his two days of play were enough to earn him TC victory number two.

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