2020 Ryder Cup Postponement Becomes Official (And The Presidents Cup Was Pushed Back, Too)

Guy Kinnings (European Tour), Seth Waugh (middle, PGA of America), Jay Monahan (PGA Tour)

Kudos to European Tour’s Guy Kinnings and the PGA of America’s Seth Waugh for tolerating the Presidents Cup and Jay Monahan’s efforts to put it on the same plain as the Ryder Cup, all while conducting the 2020-Ryder Cup postponement news.

While there were some funny moments related to efforts at making sure the 2021 Presidents Cup postponement was of great interest, not even question-askers from Charlotte could muster up concerns for the PC’s postponement.

The Ryder Cup is just on a different level. And now it’s set for late September, 2021 at Whistling Straits.

I really enjoyed Seth Waugh’s sincere opening remarks about the responsibility entrusted in him and the PGA of America to do what’s best for what is an “exhibition,” but golf’s greatest one by a lot. Enjoy:

SETH WAUGH: Well, thanks, Julius. It's good to be with everybody this morning, this afternoon and be with our great partners Guy and Jay and everyone out there, so thanks everyone for taking the time. I remember literally my first day on the job was about 21months ago in Paris at the beginning of the Ryder Cup,and I was sitting in the stands for that incredible moment of the Ryder Cup, that first shot on the first day, and the flags are waving and people are singing,and jets are flying over. It's one of those incredible, iconic moments in sports, and Michael Jordan is kind of right next to us and I was sitting right next to Darrell Crall, who's our chief operating officer, and he could see that look in my eye and he goes, yeah, it's an awesome responsibility, isn't it.And you realize that that's what we have, right. It's a gift from our forebears, this incredible exhibition tha tbrings out so much passion.So to answer your last question first, it was a very tough decision. I think people think this is -- it might be easier than it is, but frankly since the speculation started a couple months ago in the press and elsewhere that Ryder Cup would be postponed, we've kind of done everything we could to make it one of those kind of Dewey-beats-Truman headlines, that we really wanted to play this, and it's not -- when I say that,not because where the rumors came from. That's great; that's what makes the Ryder Cup so special. It's the passion that it arouses, the tribalism, the nationalism. It's news even when it's not news, and that's the beauty of this incredible event. So we tried everything we could to make it happen because it would have been such a special year given what everybody has gone through to have pulled it off.

And regarding everything they went through before deciding on the eventual postponement:

We hired an infectious disease expert to advise us. We've talked to the CDC. We've talked to the Broad Institute, we've talked to Scientists versus COVID, the governor of Wisconsin, the county of Sheboygan, obviously our great partners constantly with the TOUR, Ryder Cup Europe, our hosts, the Kohlers, our broadcast partners at NBC. We called the captains. We called many of the players. We talked to some fans. I even went and spoke to Mark Murphy at the Packers, who obviously had some what we thought would be pretty good local information to see what they were thinking, and his perspective was, you know, we hope to play and we hope to play with fans at some point, maybe start with 25 percent and go from there,and I said, we actually need to build Lambeau Field between now and September. And he kind of paused and he said to me, he goes, boy, that's really complicated. He said, I think you might have the hardest decision to make of anybody I've talked to since this thing started, and I said, well, thanks very much. That's very helpful.

Guy Kinnings of the European Tour offered not much rear-view mirror analysis about the impact of players, fans or COVID-19 in the decision, but instead of focused on the future:

The announcement is also good for the brand of the Ryder Cup as a whole, as it allows us to plan the match to be played in front of a full house in September'21, creating that wonderful atmosphere that Seth described that he saw in Paris that makes the Ryder Cup the envy of many around the world.It also will allow for a full qualification process for both teams, ensuring the 24 best players will be in action for Europe and for the U.S. in 15 months' time. Indeed the changes to our qualification process have just been announced ahead of the resumption of the European Tour in Austria tomorrow morning.Finally, as regards Ryder Cup Europe, it's great news for our future venues. Although plans in Marco Simone remain firmly on schedule, today's news that the 44th Ryder Cup will now take place in 2023 instead of 2022will give Italy, a country which has an amazing history of staging very special sporting events, extra time toprepare for hosting golf's greatest team event in what will be an extraordinary occasion in Rome in just overthree years' time.

For Jay Monahan, well, there was that phone call that no Commissioner ever wants to have to make: to the International Captain when there is no American captain to even yet call because the Cup is a year away.

So I think this is a really good solution for players. For us, one of the hard conversations that I had was with Trevor Immelman, captain of the international side,recognizing that now it's a year for him, but as we talked and as he said, if the shoe were on the other foot and we were going to these two organizations, you know, they would respond the same way, and that's the beauty of our sport and that's the beauty of the way that we work together, and this is the right decision for the Ryder Cup, therefore it's the right decision for the Presidents Cup, and we're going to be supportive of it.

In the PGA Tour’s press release about the Presidents Cup moving to 2022, Monahan worked in some wheels-up lingo.

“We are confident the move will give us even more runway as we bring the Presidents Cup to Charlotte in 2022.”

Take that, nautical lingo.

While it’s a bummer not to get a Ryder Cup this year, the move is the right one.

Players were not enthused, the idea of playing with no or limited crowds was not preferred by anyone but a few of us, and the European Tour was supportive despite potential business issues with the move. And, don’t forget the perks of that longer runway for Charlotte in 2022.