Wimbledon tennis tournament cancelled until next year

[dalehead]

Open Championship next?

[3whacker]

Wimbledon is usually the last week of June till sometime around July 4th.....so the OPEN is scheduled when.....

[Showtime9]

Sadly, I feel like there will be no majors this year. 2020 will be a write-off for sports in general which is terrible to say but a reality we are quickly heading towards

[gvogel]

A week or two after Wimbledon.

Also, the Tour de France is around that time.

[Hawkeye77]

They have hypodermics that reach 6 feet - Tour de France should be fine.

[MattyO1984]

The Open will be canned within the next two weeks for sure. The number of deaths from Covid19 has steadily been rising this week. The Government here think that they might have a handle on it and the increase over the next couple of weeks will be less than it could have been but I suspect that the numbers will shock people and that is going to have such an impact that the R&A will feel that they have no other option which to be fair I don’t think that they do.

[OldTomMorris]

Agreed and the constant chat that these events could be played without fans/spectators isn't going to happen. If its not safe for everyone then I doubt players, media, etc are going to consider the risk.

The current situation requires cool heads and patience (some media here in the UK are hysterical and they think they are helping). Of course that doesn't mean there hasn't already been tragedy and wont be more to come.

You wont catch me moaning about a weak field event in the future, all golf will be a blessing.

[MidwestGolfBum]

Exactly, and to expand on those things, I offer the following:

Even if they can get an event ready to go without the spectator aspect, the issue comes in to what happens when somebody can't get into a country because of where they are coming from based on travel bans?

What happens if a player is discovered to have it while at the event?

How do you deal with the fact that you need the dining places for the players, caddies, volunteers, etc.?

What about travel bans from an event back to a given country?

Professional golf is going to be back, but when you're talking about golf in a different country from wherever a lot of these players are coming from isn't.

[JaNelson38]

"The current situation requires cool heads and patience"

 

Unfortunately that just isn't going to happen, because you simply cannot keep a modern society quarantined for an indefinite period of time. I read a story the other day online that the Italian government is readying for riots to start, especially in southern Italy. Those poor people have been stuck in lockdown for, what, 6 weeks now?

I preface the following comment as Im not trying to be political in the least - Im trying to be a realist. Our world leaders - from all countries affected by this - need to come to a consensus as soon as possible about when in their specific countries they will return to normal life, depending on where a specific country is with regards to where they are on the "curve". If not dates, benchmarks (so to speak) with regards to new cases or deaths that actually show and tell the people that what they are doing is working, and a specific goal in mind to where people can know if they reach it, they can return to normal life. Not wonky graphs that really the basic layperson can't understand. The reason all this stuff is getting canceled, pushed back, postponed, etc. is because of the constant worry, panic, and uncertainty over what is going on. The horse is out of the barn - the virus can't be stopped now. The only thing that can truly stop this virus now is a vaccine, or some sort of medicinal therapy that blunts its effects sufficiently until a vaccine is created. The reality is that some people are going to get sick, and some of them are unfortunately going to die. People need to have a light at the end of the tunnel with regards to how long they need to be this way. Because sooner or later, there's going to be a breaking point. People are going to be more sick of being afraid than they are of being afraid of getting sick. We're starting to see that now here in the United States, where outside of NYC, New Jersey, and maybe a few spots you can count on one hand, this virus really isn't that large of a problem. Where I live in rural Wisconsin, we literally have 4 cases in a 75-square mile radius - yet we out here are being treated the same as in NYC, where 10 million people live on top of each other.

The first sports league or tournament to announce that they are NOT canceling their events will be a breath of fresh air. Maybe it will be the NFL. Maybe it will be the PGA Tour getting together with its tournaments and actually setting a schedule with at least a couple of majors that begins sometime later this spring/summer. Because the race to be the first to cancel is getting absurd. Wimbledon canceling now is a joke, it really is - it doesnt start until June 29. That's 90 days away!!! I mean, seriously - what is going on here?

[MountainGoat]

I find myself reluctantly having to agree with people proposing that we're seeing only the beginning of the sports cancellations. Flattening the curve isn't good enough to promote mass assembly. If you've got even a single infected person running around a crowd of spectators, you run the risk of starting the wave of infection all over again. Until we get a vaccine, spectator sports as we know them are done.

If we get a quick and reliable test, then I can see the participants and supporting personnel assembling. But, spectators? Not likely.

 

[OldTomMorris]

Re: Southern Italy, my understanding that the brewing unrest is due to a food shortage problem and not the lockdown per se.

Wimbledon has a qualifier event so it effectively starts earlier but its impossible to plan the necessary logistics for the event. They are in a no win situation and had to cancel. I disagree, it was inevitable and smart.

[bladehunter]

Absolutely.

[Loki]

We are supposed to play in Scotland late June. We think the flights will ultimately be cancelled or the hotels won't be open.

I also play a weekend outing first week of May. Four of the guys are okay with being in a car for five hours. They trust each other that if they feel sick, they will back out. LOL, they just don't get it.

[Hawkeye77]

Can’t stop with the politics, just going to kill another thread.