I Love the “New” PGA Tour

I love the “New” PGA Tour…absolutely love it!

With COVID-19 and this damn pandemic laying waste to sports and all our lives for that matter, I was sure that I had zero interest in any sport and their plans for “restarting”.

I live a short drive from the first epicenter of this mess. I drive to New York City and Manhattan in the time it takes for a quick nine holes to visit my daughter and her husband. The disaster that overwhelmed the Big Apple hit way too close to home.

Our family has been fortunate to avoid any real tragedy but my perspective toward golf, sports and just about anything else that was “non-essential” had taken a blow. I thought I didn’t care if Rory, Tiger and Brooks ever hit a ball this year. I could not have cared less if Aaron Judge and his pinstriped brethren lit up Yankee Stadium on their way to the World Series. I had given up on the wild and always wacky NHL Playoffs.

Sports was not important. Surviving was.

And then things changed. Call it weakness, call it desperation, call it cabin fever…when the PGA Tour fired it up at Colonial I was glued to the coverage. The PGA Tour Live online coverage was on long before any broadcast and I was hooked.

I never realized how much I missed live professional golf,,,, especially when Rory and his top ten mates are welcoming us back to a bit of normalcy.

So I submitted, acquiesced and fell in love with the “New” PGA Tour all over again for a few very new reasons.

First of all and most significantly there are no fans, patrons, hangers on or any other sort of casual observer. PGA Tour Bubble Approved Citizenry only! That means no morons screaming “get in the hole.” No mooks yelling “mashed potatoes” or “you da man” or any other damn nonsense. It was heaven!

I know the Tour’s business plan includes fans and a full season of this is untenable but man for this crazy, unimaginable, truncated season it’s pure joy for me.

The television coverage now can focus on the players and we can hear plenty of player/caddie exchanges. Some may say a bit too much as the microphones have picked up a few off color rants. But it’s so worth it.

And without all those grand stands and hordes of people surrounding the course the players are catching what some may call “bad breaks”. Previously, if a player airmails a green there’s a good chance his ball bounces off the grandstand or he could get a free drop if it is in his way. How many times have we seen a hook or slice bounce off a poor fan only to save the player from his ball running another thirty yards off line? Not so easy when you have to play from real rough behind the green because there are no fans to stomp down the rough. Balls that could have been just yards off the fairway now bound far off line. It’s great! Play like we hackers do for a change guys!

All of this is wonderful but the true joy for me are the courses. Without the build-out and the absence of fans we can see the courses. And they are glorious.

From Colonial to Harbor Town to TPC River Highlands to Detroit Golf Club and to Jack’s Place at Muirfield they have all looked fabulous. And we can see them…so much of them.

We’ve seen them before but loaded with all the paraphernalia that comes with a tour event that hides so much of these architectural gems.

Harbor Town must have looked like it did back ’67 when Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus paired up to design it. I’ve walked TPC River Highlands a half dozen times but never saw it as it looked during The Travelers. And now for two weeks we get to see Muirfield in most of its natural, uncluttered glory.

I still fear this pandemic and all the knuckleheads that don’t but having the tour back…especially in its new, naked state is marvelous. No fans, no mooks, no morons, no distractions.

I love the new PGA Tour.