KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — Seth Waugh, the CEO of the PGA of America, said Tuesday the plan for the 2021 Ryder Cup, which is scheduled for September at Whistling Straits, is to have full spectator capacity.
The Ryder Cup was postponed last fall because of COVID-19 and, since the PGA Tour and European Tour resumed their respective schedules, they have gone from conducting tournaments without spectators to limited capacity in more recent months.
This week’s PGA Championship, for example, will be played with about 10,000 fans per day in attendance, which is about a quarter of the usual capacity.
“We have every hope and every desire and we’re working very hard to make it an absolute full fan experience,’’ Waugh said of the Ryder Cup. “We’re working obviously with the state and local governments (in Wisconsin) to have all those conversations. It’ll be fluid. But our plan is to have a Ryder Cup in a way (to) have it be the greatest Ryder Cup in history. I think the world as we’ve seen is ready to have a party.
“The Olympics is going to happen it looks like, but not in the way that you would hope it would (with spectators). So this is really going to be the first time to cheer for your country, to have that sort of tribal — in-person, anyway — sort of tribal atmosphere that is so important.
“We’re hopeful that September will be one of the great events in golf and a great sort of exclamation point to the end of this thing. We think it’s all going to happen fast from here, certainly from a U.S. perspective. I realize the world still has a lot of challenges out there, but from a U.S. perspective we’re really hopeful we’ll be able to pull it off.”
Kerry Haigh, the chief championships officer for the PGA of America, said the ticket sales were sold out as of a year ago.
“We are working with the county and the state of Wisconsin and have submitted our COVID protocol plan, which continues to change and evolve every day,’’ Haigh said. “We’re hopeful that by September we will be able to have full attendance. If it were today, we could not based on where COVID numbers are, but certainly with the vaccine and the numbers coming down, we are very hopeful and optimistic that we will be able to have a full attendance.’’