What a day in the world of golf.
The United States Golf Association announced on Monday that the 120th U.S. Open will be postponed to the fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the same day, The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews – The R&A – announced that the British Open will be canceled for 2020.
The U.S. Open represents the third of the four annual major golf championships, and was originally scheduled for June 18-21 at Winged Foot Gold Club in Mamaroneck, New York. The location will remain the same, but the tournament will now take place in the fall.
In a press release, USGA CEO Mike Davis thanked Winged Foot for its flexibility and other major tournaments for their cooperation:
“We are hopeful that postponing the championship will offer us the opportunity to mitigate health and safety issues while still providing us with the best opportunity to conduct the U.S. Open this year...We are incredibly thankful to the membership and staff at Winged Foot for their flexibility and support. We are also grateful for the wonderful collaboration among the professional tours and other majors in working through a complicated schedule.”
Just days ago, on April 3, the USGA announced that the 75th U.S. Women's Open would be postponed to Dec. 10-13. It will be held at Champions Golf Club in Houston, Texas.
The USGA also announced that the 41st Senior U.S. Open and the 3rd U.S. Senior Women's Open are canceled for 2020. The 41st U.S. Senior Open will now take place July 8-11, 2021, at Omaha Country Club in Omaha, Nebraska. The 3rd U.S. Senior Women's Open has yet to be rescheduled.
We also received news Monday that the Masters Tournament and the PGA Championship – the two other golf majors – officially have new dates.
With Monday's across-the-board announcements, all four major golf tournaments have officially been postponed or canceled for 2020 due to the coronavirus.
In a statement, CEO of The R&A Martin Slumbers said that the organization explored all options to play the British Open, but that holding the tournament was not feasible, based on the recommendation of the U.K. government:
“There are many different considerations that go into organising a major sporting event of this scale. We rely on the support of the emergency services, local authorities and a range of other organisations to stage the Championship and it would be unreasonable to place any additional demands on them when they have far more urgent priorities to deal with.
The U.K. has been one of the countries most affected by the coronavirus, reporting nearly 5,000 deaths as of Sunday.
Defending British Open champion Shane Lowry weighed in on the cancellation of the event he last won:
Graeme McDowell, winner of the 2010 U.S. Open, probably put it best:
All schedule updates can be reviewed here:
