PGA Tour bracing for ‘historic’ return

On Monday, PGA Tour officials, players and caddies will convene at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, to begin preparations for the Charles Schwab Challenge.

It will be the first PGA Tour event since The Players Championship was canceled on March 12 as a result of the COVID-19 spread. And when play begins with the opening round on Thursday, it will have been 90 days since the last tournament round was played.

Suffice it to say: It’s been a long time coming. For golf. And for sports.

The PGA Tour restarts its season before the NBA and NHL resume and before Major League Baseball has gotten even close to starting. When the competition begins Thursday, it will mark the first mainstream sport in America (with apologies to NASCAR and UFC) to get underway since the world was paralyzed by the pandemic.

Since the PGA Tour rejiggered its schedule in April following the cancellations resulting from the coronavirus crisis, the Charles Schwab Challenge was set to bat leadoff among the first four events announced — all of which are to be played without spectators and under highly strict safety regulations that include testing for all “essential’’ personnel on the grounds.

“It is going to be historic,’’ Michael Tothe, Charles Schwab Challenge tournament director, said this past week.

“We’re excited to be a part of the first four,’’ said Steve Wilmot, the tournament director of the RBC Heritage, which is second in the batting order. “It’s going to be unique.’’

Nathan Grube, the Travelers Championship director, the third event on the schedule, said, “All of us want to do it the right way. We all have an awareness of the responsibility to do this right, to help bring the Tour back, to do it the safe way and hopefully the events after us can learn from us.’’

What’s it going to look like with no spectators?

“When the TV cameras come on, it’s not going to look that different, but with no spectators, it’s really going to be quiet here,’’ Tothe said. “There won’t be the buzz you normally would have with 25,000 fans every day. It’s going to be strange.’’

These first four events likely will have the feel of a talent-rich club championship.

We got a small taste of that with the two charity events that were played last month — the skins game at Seminole Golf Club involving Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff, and the game between Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning against Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady at Medalist.

But those were exhibitions each involving just four players and a limited TV production crew.

For these first four full-field events on the PGA Tour’s revised schedule — this week at Colonial, then the RBC Heritage, Travelers Championship and the Rocket Mortgage Championship — the curiosity factor is significant.

And that curiosity isn’t limited to the TV viewing audience, but for the players who’ll be competing amid what surely will be an eerie silence and for the tournament organizers who’ve been scrambling to structure their events in ways they’ve never had to before.

“When we learned we were moving to June back in early April, I think our stress levels were really high, because there were a lot of things that needed to be put in place that we didn’t have answers to,’’ Tothe said.

This is a unique time when few have answers to many questions. That’s why Tothe and his fellow tournament directors from the first four events have been leaning on each other as they tiptoe into this new territory.

“More than anything, it’s a comfort to have those guys to talk to,’’ Wilmot said. “We’re all different. We all have different venues, different marketplaces, facilities, sponsors, partners.’’

The RBC is the most different of the four, because the golf course weaves through a resort community and is lined with homes, where there will be built-in spectators watching the golf from decks and backyards.

“There’s not a home for rent on the golf course,’’ Wilmot said. “Everything is rented out. There are people who have rented a home for that week for their family vacation and all of a sudden they’re going to go, ‘Oh, there’s a PGA Tour event in my backyard.’ ”

What Wilmot, Grube and Langwell will have that Tothe won’t is the ability to see how the event before theirs was done.

“That’s going to be a huge advantage for us,’’ Grube said.

“The Tour has told us, ‘We’re not going to know certain things until we get through Colonial,’ ” Wilmot said. “And I’m sure Nathan has been told, ‘We’re not going to know certain things until we get through the two events before you.’ All the other tournaments are going to learn from all of us.’’