CHENNAI: Next Wednesday, some of India's premier golfers who make their living playing on the PGTI and Asian Tour will tee off at the Panchkula and Chandigarh Golf Clubs. To enable proper social distancing, the first two tournaments back — PGTI Players Championship presented by Panchkula Golf Club (Nov 4-7) and PGTI Players Championship presented by Chandigarh Golf Club (Nov 9-12) — will be held in two golf courses. But it isn't as uncommon as it sounds.
"Tournaments have been held in two venues previously," PGTI CEO Uttam Singh Mundy tells this newspaper. "We ourselves have done this in Jamshedpur previously. Meets in the US have been held like this."
With the golfing ecosystem coming to a standstill because of the lockdown — the last event on the calendar was the Bengal Open Championship from March 12-15 — this is an important event. So how is PGTI bringing back the sport?
For starters, the tournament will not be held in, strictly speaking, a bio-bubble. "It's going to be a bubble of sorts but not a bubble per se," Mundy says. "For a bio-bubble to work, you need every golfer to stay in the same hotel and so on. Here, they can stay with their friends."
It's to be noted that tournaments need not be in a bio-bubble for it to go ahead. Unlike some other Tours that have restarted elsewhere, PGTI is also allowing caddies. "We are allowing caddies to accompany their players, but they have to keep sanitising their hands before and after they retrieve the balls after a player putts them."
Saying that, PGTI needs all golfers to come with a Covid-19 negative certificate. "It's simple, they will get tested 72 hours before travelling. If they have a negative certificate, they will enter the premises and play. Otherwise, they will not travel," Mundy points out.
There will be no testing while the tournament is on, but there will be temperature screenings before the players are allowed into the golf course every morning.
So how will the format work? For the first event, players swap courses the first two days, with the next two days being held only at Panchkula. It's a similar arrangement for the second event as well, but play on the third and fourth days will be in Chandigarh. The one big plus is the close proximity of the courses.
"It's a 15 minute drive from one course to the other, so it's possible that players can stay in one hotel if they want to. That's a positive," Mundy says. However, there could still be last minute cancellations because of quarantine rules for players coming from abroad. "The quarantine is as per MHA guidelines, so there could still be cancellations. We are yet to hear anything about it," Munda explains.
To help the fringe players, PGTI has also decided to cancel Q School for the coming year. "There will be no Q School for the coming year, all those who have cards for 2020 will retain them for 2021. The 2020 season will finish in December 2021," Mundy says.
After these two events, PGTI will finish 2020 with three more: Jeev Milkha Singh Invitational in Chandigarh (Dec 3-6), Indian Oil Servo Masters in Digboi (Dec 9-12) and Tata Steel Tour Championship in Jamshedpur (Dec 17-20).