With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, shutdowns within the sports world have been felt at all levels.
It's no different for the Arkansas State Golf Association, which has postponed tournaments through May 10, Executive Director Jay Fox told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Tuesday. The decision was reached the middle of last week.
The ASGA had previously announced a postponement of all tournaments through the end of April. So far, two tournaments have been postponed, with at least six more events over the next few weeks set to be placed on hold in accordance with the ASGA's latest policy.
The ASGA is issuing refunds for all entry fees for its postponed tournaments.
Fox said the ASGA, which has a membership of more than 11,000 and has been around since 1915, intends to work to reschedule tournaments that have been postponed, although that will depend largely on host courses' ability to hold the events at a later date that works for both the course and the ASGA. Ultimately, the ASGA's decision-making will fall in line with what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending and the United States Golf Association is implementing, Fox said.
"It's almost like we're at 28,000 feet in a holding pattern and we're waiting for the airport below [and] the thunderstorm to get out of there so we can land the plane," said Fox, who's been with the ASGA for 31 years. "All we can kind of do at this point is have a tentative plan in place...moving forward."
U.S. Open local qualifying was set for May 5 at Hot Springs Country Club, but that had already been canceled last month by the USGA. The U.S. Open, which was originally scheduled for June 18-21, has been rescheduled for Sept. 17-20, providing hope that local qualifying in Arkansas will be pushed to a later date.
It's entirely possible there could be more ASGA events in the near future that get postponed -- or even canceled -- including the state championship, one of the organization's major tournaments. The state amateur is currently scheduled for May 28-30 at Hardscrabble Country Club in Fort Smith, although that date could be in jeopardy.
"We have not yet made a decision on that," Fox said. "The only years that we technically didn't host the state amateur were in years of war -- like World War I and World War II. Other than that, we've always had a state amateur."
The Southern Junior Cup featuring matches between Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Missouri, have also been postponed until 2021. That was supposed to take place Aug. 3-5 at Shadow Valley Country Club in Rogers.
Continuing to lose tournaments over the next few months would present financial hurdles for the ASGA, but it would not be catastrophic. Fox said the ASGA, which is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, does have cash reserves it could dig into in order to stay operational on its own for 12-18 months.
"We're gonna be prepared for whatever happens," Fox said.
Recreational golf at public and private courses continues amid the coronavirus outbreak, although in many cases extra precautions have been put into place to ensure social distancing and limit contact with objects on the course and people.
Fox said he played golf Sunday at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Little Rock, and the cup on each green was "inverted," a measure that many courses around the country are beginning to take to prevent golfers from having to, under the normal course of events, remove their ball out of the hole.
"You're not supposed to touch the flag stick, and if your ball just hits the inverted cup -- just touches it, glances off of it, whatever -- it's considered holed, and you just pick up and move on," Fox said.
Should the ASGA at some point resume its tournament schedule while courses continue to practice certain precautionary measures -- most importantly, inverting the cup -- it could present a challenge for the ASGA, as the game could be fundamentally altered.
"I guess we could [do it]," Fox said. "We might play a four-ball that way, or we might play something else. I don't think that we would play the state amateur that way, but, if that's how golf changed to be for this year, then if we wanted to play golf this year, I guess we would certainly consider that."
Sports on 04/08/2020