"The tricky business of restarting the European Tour"

GolfDigest.com’s John Huggan considers the state of the European Tour and Chief Executive Keith Pelley’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis. The quieter and less predictive approach from Europe is a product of style and relying on government experts to green light any tournament dates.

Later in the piece he gets into Sky Sports’ relationship with the Tour and possible business issues looming there as well as the ability of players to make a living if reduced purses come.

But this on Pelley’s handling from Lee Westwood highlights how some players see the PGA Tour’s push to return in June.

“I think Keith has actually made a lot of good decisions,” says European Tour veteran Lee Westwood. “In contrast, the PGA Tour’s plan to play in June is very ambitious. No one has ever seen anything like this. So we have to be so mindful of what is going on in the world. Forget about golf. Yes, we’d all like to have live sport on television, but is that really so important compared with what is going on in society worldwide?

Westwood believes that by holding out on announcing a formal plan, what the Pelley and the European Tour have done is give themselves a bigger window of time to assess the situation and give integrity to what would remain of the season. “There is an opportunity to schedule events at the end of the year,” Westwood says. “The longer you wait, the more chance you have of actually making things happen. And I look at the biggest events and think, if you have to hold them, do it 100 percent. Do them right, or not at all.”