Fall calendar becoming crowded as tournaments get rescheduled
03 May 2020
by AmateurGolf.com Staff
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- USGA photo
If all goes well, the second half of the year has a chance to be exciting, as more and more tournaments get rescheduled from the spring and early summer to later in the year because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Related: List of amateur tournaments affected by the coronavirus outbreak
Related: Coronavirus will not break amateur tournament's 121-year streak
Many tournaments have been cancelled, including the last 2+ months of the college season, most of the spring amateur majors, and even professional majors like the
British Open and the
U.S. Men's and Women's Senior Opens.
But many have been rescheduled into later in the year, compressing the schedule and creating a calendar unlike any we've ever seen in golf.
Before the coronavirus, the professional major season would have ended in July. Now it won't even
start until August with the PGA Championship, and it won't end
until November with the Masters (with the women ending even later at the U.S. Women's Open in December).
How about the U.S. Mid-Amateur, the U.S. Open and the
Crump Cup in back-to-back weeks? That's the schedule for September now.
The two most important tournaments in amateur golf -- the U.S. and British Amateurs -- are now just a couple weeks apart in August, followed immediately by the second biggest tournament across the pond, the
European Amateur.
Related: The R&A shakes up the international calendar due to COVID-19
At least two state amateurs (Florida, Kentucky) will now be played after summer ends. And many other state-level and club tournaments are being moved later in the summer or the fall.
Add to this the hope that the college season will be played as scheduled, and the result is a crowded schedule with plenty of opportunities to play but also some unexpected conflicts.
For example, with the
Florida Amateur championship moving to December 17-20, it's possible if not likely that three big tournaments in the same state (the state am, the
Dixie Amateur and the
South Beach International) will have the same dates with a fourth, the
Palmer Cup Matches, starting the day after.
Related: Palmer Cup matches moved to December, from Ireland to Florida
But such conflict is a small price to pay for the hope of getting back to some sense of normalcy, not just in our world of competitive amateur golf, but also in our broader way of life. Here's hoping that we can all do everything we can to get us to where we want to be: back at work, back at school, and back on the golf course testing ourselves like no other game can.
In the meantime, AmateurGolf.com will stay on top of
all of the schedule changes as the rest of the year slowly starts to take shape.