The Open Championship has been canceled for the first time since World War II due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 149th Open was scheduled to take place at Royal St George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, England, in July, but with the pandemic ripping the sporting schedule to shreds, the event has became the first of the sport’s four majors to be canceled this year.
Golf’s oldest major is to be hosted at the same venue in the county of Kent in July next year.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The Open was due to be played in Kent from 12-19 July but it has been necessary to cancel the championship based on guidance from the UK Government, the health authorities, public services and the R&A’s advisers,” organizer the R&A said in a statement on Monday.
St Andrews is still to host the 150th Open, but a year later than scheduled in 2022.
“Our absolute priority is to protect the health and safety of the fans, players, officials, volunteers and staff involved in the Open. We care deeply about this historic championship and have made this decision with a heavy heart,” R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers said. “We have explored every option for playing The Open this year, but it is not going to be possible. We rely on the support of the emergency services, local authorities and a range of other organisations to stage the Championship and it would be unreasonable to place any additional demands on them when they have far more urgent priorities to deal with.”
“We appreciate that this will be disappointing for a great many people around the world but we have to act responsibly during this pandemic and it is the right thing to do,” he said.
The Open is the latest high-profile tournament to be axed because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Wimbledon was canceled for the first time since World War II last week, while soccer’s Euro 2020 and the Olympics have been pushed back a year.
Ireland’s Shane Lowry won last year’s Open at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland.
“Obviously I’m disappointed that I won’t get to defend the Open Championship this year but I feel the R&A have made the right decisions based on people’s health and safety. See you all in Royal St George’s in 2021,” Lowry wrote on Twitter.
Royal St George’s has hosted The Open 14 times, most recently in 2011, when Northern Ireland’s Darren Clarke won the event.
The Open, which started in 1860, was also not held from 1915 to 1919 because of World War I.
“Postponement or cancelations is something that we have become accustomed to until everyone is safe and safe to do our sport. It is a shame, but there are things bigger than golf at the moment,” England’s Danny Willett, who won the 2016 Masters, told the BBC.
Both this year’s Masters and PGA Championship were postponed in March because of the pandemic, and were rescheduled after The Open postponement.
The PGA Championship, which was initially due to be held next month, is now set to be staged from Aug. 6 to 9 at Harding Park in San Francisco.
The US Open has been moved from June to Sept. 17 to 20, the week before the Ryder Cup clash between Europe and the US.
The Masters, which usually takes place this month, is now slated to go ahead from Nov. 12 to 15 at Augusta National.
Former reality TV star Jessie Holmes on Tuesday night cruised to a repeat victory in the Iditarod, the about 1,609km sled dog race in Alaska. Holmes guided his dog team across the finish line in the old Gold Rush town of Nome, a Bering Sea coastal community. The race started on March 8 in Willow, a day after the ceremonial start in Anchorage. The course took dog teams and their mushers over two mountain ranges, along the frozen Yukon River and across the unpredictable Bering Sea ice. Holmes, a former cast member on the National Geographic reality show Life Below Zero, is the
Taiwanese boxer and Olympic gold medalist Lin Yu-ting has been approved to compete in the Asian Boxing Elite Championships, the Chinese Taipei Boxing Association (CTBA) said yesterday. The championships start on Saturday next week in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Lin became entangled in a gender controversy, despite the International Olympic Committee confirming her eligibility to compete as a female boxer. In August last year, World Boxing mandated a new regulation that required all athletes to undergo a polymerase chain reaction. genetic test to determine their sex at birth and their eligibility. Since the introduction of the test, Lin has missed several
The Taoyuan Pauian Pilots on Sunday fell short in their bid for a first East Asia Super League (EASL) title after a 90-81 loss to Japan’s Utsunomiya Brex in Macau. The defeat marked the second straight year the defending P.League+ champions missed out on the EASL crown, but they remain the first team to reach back-to-back championship games in the league’s three-year history. The outcome was largely decided by long-range shooting. The Pilots struggled from beyond the arc, hitting just five of 20 attempts, while the Brex converted 19 three-pointers, shooting 46.3 percent from long range. Seven of the eight Brex players
ONE MORE CHANCE: While North Korea denied Taiwan in Australia, Taiwan, who last played in the World Cup in 1991, could still qualify via inter-confederation playoffs Taiwan yesterday lost 4-0 to a dominant North Korea in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup playoffs, closing off an avenue to qualify for the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Hong Song-ok scored a hat-trick in the match to determine the last of the confederation’s qualifiers from the tournament for next year’s World Cup in Brazil. With their victory over Taiwan, North Korea has qualified for the first time since a doping saga in 2011 led to their long absence from top-tier international tournaments. Angela Beard and Jaclyn Sawicki scored in a six-minute span to help the Philippines secure a World Cup spot with a
RSS