COVID-19 Not Slowing Down Golf

COVID-19 Not Slowing Down Golf

When the coronavirus pandemic shut the world down..

There were few outdoor activities available..

But one of those was the sport of golf.

With the korn ferry tour championship, presented by united leasing and finance starting this week... tournament and club officials are thrilled with what they believe is an opportunity to grow the game... in the midst of a pandemic.

Our very own andrew garcia has that story.

On june 11th, the charles schwab challenge took place making golf the first sport to resume as a live sporting event in the united states, and many courses remained open during that time for recreation.

Back in april we had an influx of our local members trying to play more.

They might have been in the medical fields or in fields that weren't working everyday.

So they were out here spending their day with us enjoying time, whereas maybe they weren't showing those coworkers as much and they were out here with us enjoying their day and we're trying to give them the safest experience possible and allow them to get out and enjoy the golf course.-alex like other golf matches this year, the korn ferry tour championship will have no in person attendance which impacts both the tournament and victoria national golf club.

Everything is really a direct impact to the tournament itself.

The tournament rents victoria national, the golf course for the week to be able to use it.

So the club is still whole and they are fine and as far as the tournament goes there is certainly an impact to us not having spectators.

A lot of what we do with our giveback and just with our sponsorship revolves around our sign age that's on course, the tickets that we sell for hospitality.

So without that revenue it certainly is an impact to the bottom line.-laureen we definitely are going to miss the fans.

Everybody gets up to show off.

It's like getting dressed up for prom.

But without the spectators here there's going to be a lot less impact on the fringes of the golf course there is no tearing down of all that corporate hospitality and staging.-ron golf is one of the few live sports taking place in the us currently and for a sport that naturally has social distancing, officials believe now is a perfect time to capitalize and improve on the popularity of the sport.

Our rounds of golf are way up even through covid.

They're very excited to get out here and experience the tournament conditions and i think just being on tv, we're going to have a lot of people that are now going to be glued to their tv's watching it on the golf channel and they're excited they can't wait for us to open back up and get back out here in september and experience the same golf course once again after the tournament is over with.

Reporting in newburgh,