No fans, no cup: Ryder Cup postponed until 2021

PGA of America making right call in postponing the Ryder Cup

For the past four weeks, the PGA Tour has successfully managed to stage a return with no fans in attendance. But the Ryder Cup, the biennial event between Team U.S.A. and Team Europe, is no ordinary tournament.

The PGA of America and the European Tour will make the announcement on Wednesday that has seemed inevitable since the coronavirus pandemic forced the shutdown of sports around the world: the Ryder Cup, scheduled to begin on Sept. 25 at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, will be postponed until 2021.

Without fans in attendance, players were in near unanimous agreement that the Ryder Cup just wouldn’t feel the same. Other tournaments, even major championships, may go on without spectators, but the atmosphere and majesty of the Ryder Cup is something they agreed would be taken away completely with no fans.

“There’s a lot that goes into putting on the Ryder Cup that people don’t appreciate, but having a Ryder Cup without fans is not a Ryder Cup,” Rory McIlroy, a veteran of the last five Ryder Cups, said back in April. “It wouldn’t be a great spectacle. There’d be no atmosphere. So if it came to whether they had to choose between not playing the event or playing it without fans, I would say just delay it a year and play it in 2021.”

The Ryder Cup is victorious European fans, many with beers in their hands, chanting ‘ole, ole, ole’ as Team Europe lifted the trophy in Paris in 2018. It’s Patrick Reed shushing a hostile crowd at Gleneagles in 2014. When Justin Leonard made his long birdie putt at Brookline in 1999, he celebrated with his American teammates who came streaming onto the green as the crowd erupted. If that happened in 2020, there would be no celebration, no excitement, no moment that would last forever.

“The fans make that event. The fans make that special. If we’re not playing in front of fans, it’s just like us playing a game in Florida,” said Brooks Koepka, who even suggested some players might skip the event if it was played without fans. “There’s no fist pumping there. There’s no excitement. The fans create the excitement for the Ryder Cup.”

The PGA of America hesitated before making this momentous decision, but they had no other choice. Money from broadcast rights and ticket sales will have to put off for another year. They were expecting a boisterous crowd this year when Team U.S.A. was to be captained by Wisconsin native Steve Stricker. The European Tour, which depends heavily on revenue from staging the Ryder Cup, will have to wait until 2023 before the event is held in Rome. The event, first held in 1927, has only been postponed twice before in its history, during World War II and immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Ryder Cup will now be held Sept. 30-Oct. 3, 2021, with the Presidents Cup moving to 2022 at Quail Hollow. The two events will keep that rotation going forward. The PGA Tour is moving forward with their 2020 season, but the Ryder Cup will have to wait.

It’s the right decision, and one all the players who’ve experienced the atmosphere of the event agree with completely.