Muirfield Village Golf Course is preparing to host back-to-back PGA Tour events in July — a rescheduled Memorial Tournament with fans one week after a new, one-time event without.
As it does so, the chefs in the Tour kitchen should work up a creative concoction that takes advantage of the irony that a game associated with silence is best played with sound.
Few sports match golf in gamesmanship, comic needling and strategy discussion during actual competition. From Tiger Woods to Joe Hack, 18-hole conversations range from deep to self-deprecating to demeaning. Golf courses are the comedy clubs of sports.
Toss in the self-loathing and boo-hooing of bad breaks that are typical among tour players and you have the potential for TV gold.
Given that, the PGA Tour needs to put microphones on players and caddies during the Workday Invitational (Workday is the title sponsor, so let’s call it that until an official name is released), a one-and-done replacement event that will be held July 9-12 without fans at Muirfield Village. A week later, the Memorial will take place, and the tournament learned on Friday that fans will be allowed.
But even bringing real-time banter to the televised-only Workday tournament may not be enough to distinguish it from the Memorial — to the detriment of both, considering either could get lost in the other’s shadow.
Memorial Tournament director Dan Sullivan has offered no details but assured that a clear distinction between the two events will be visible, if not necessarily audible.
″(The new event) will not diminish the Memorial presented by Nationwide,” Sullivan said, taking care to include the tournament’s title sponsor.
Here’s hoping Sullivan and the tour take as much care in giving the two events separate identities, or else millions of viewers might come to think of what takes place in Dublin as Tournament A and Tournament B.
That is blasphemy to Memorial organizers, but TV golf fans generally are not so discerning. After the four major championships, the World Golf Championship events, the Players Championship and even the FedEx Cup playoff events, most tournaments fall into the category of “others.”
True, some others are better than other others. Certainly, because of its association with host Jack Nicklaus and its above-average strength of field (i.e. recognizable players) and challenging course design, the Memorial’s reputation exceeds many tournaments. But is that enough to separate it from the pack if preceded by a less-established tournament played on the same course the week before? I’m not so sure.
It helps the Memorial that it will have fans, which makes it the first PGA Tour event with spectators since the coronavirus pandemic wiped out the last three rounds of the Players in March.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s office on Friday lifted restrictions on specific large-group gatherings, including the Memorial. Muirfield Village will admit a limited number of spectators, who must adhere to social-distancing guidelines.
Will the presence of fans help distinguish the two tournaments? Certainly, CBS will be able to present a “before-and-after” broadcast by comparing the same holes with and without spectators from one week to the next, and the on-course energy will improve.
But my sense is the tour needs to take things further by cooking up a format for the Workday event — say, some variation of a team event, perhaps grouping players into college rivalries or by state, and also adding tweaks like skins and longest drive or closest to the hole.
Gimmicky, sure, but this is a one-and-done event at Muirfield Village — a source said it is being used as a “test run” for a tour event sponsored by Workday to be hosted by NBA star Stephen Curry in 2021 in northern California — so forget how cheesy it looks. The goal should be to make it different enough to stand out.
But how different? That is where things gets tricky. Make Workday too entertaining and the Memorial might come off as comparatively bland, which is why the tour is taking a risk by presenting two events at the same venue on consecutive weeks.
It is a tightrope walk, so how to make sure the Memorial does not take the fall? Well, for one thing, the more exotic you make the Workday event, the better it makes the Memorial look in terms of “golf integrity.” That matters to golf purists, which tend to be the core fans.
So mic players for Workday and jazz up the format so it does not get lost in the shadow of its shared-course cousin. And by doing so you enhance the tradition and valued reputation of the Memorial.
Rob Oller is a columnist for the Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA Today Network.
