by Julian Spivey The PGA Tour found its newest young superstar on Sunday (August 9) in the final round of the 2020 PGA Championship at Harding Park in San Francisco when 23-year old Collin Morikawa took home the Wanamaker Trophy for his first major title in just the second major tournament he’s ever participated in. For much of the final round of the PGA it seemed the first golf major of the year, postponed from earlier in the season due to the COVID-19 pandemic and with the Masters Tournament being rescheduled for November, would likely wind up in a multiple golfer playoff. That was until Morikawa stepped up to the 16th tee box tied for the lead and hit a driver to within seven feet of the hole leading to a rather easy eagle putt (Morikawa leads the PGA Tour in eagles this season) to take a two-stroke lead to the final two holes. It was a shot that Paul Casey, who had been tied with Morikawa, saw from the 17th tee box. After Casey finished his round he said, “What a shot. Nothing you can do but tip your cap to that. Collin had taken on that challenge and pulled it off. That’s what champions do.” Morikawa’s tee shot on 16 was truly one of the most remarkable shots in recent golf major tournament history and will likely go down as an all-timer. It’s the kind of shot that would have had the gallery leaping to its feet and erupting in a cacophony of applause had they been able to attend the event. It’s a shame for Morikawa that in his memory and future retellings of the shot he won’t have that special detail included. Morikawa became the third youngest winner of the PGA Championship on Sunday with only Rory McIlroy and Jack Nicklaus being younger when they won the tourney. His round of 64 is the lowest ever by a PGA champion. More impressively was his weekend as a whole with the round of 65 on Saturday and his 64 on Sunday adding up to the lowest weekend score ever for any major golf winner. The PGA Tour hasn’t exactly been in need of great young talent over the last few years as it honestly seems to be everywhere on the tour, but Morikawa has thrown his hat onto the green as the next big thing and he’s only been a pro for just over a year. His first major title and third career win overall comes in just his 28th total event. He had made news earlier this year when he finally missed a cut at the Travelers Championship after making it to the weekend in his first 22 events, the second longest streak ever to begin a PGA Tour career behind only Tiger Woods. It’ll be a ton of fun seeing exactly what heights Morikawa can reach in his career. Word broke on Sunday afternoon (August 9) that the commissioners of the Power 5 college football conferences, which had previously seemed dead set on having a football season despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the country, held an emergency meeting earlier in the day to discuss the possibility of canceling it after all. No decisions were made during the meeting, but multiple sources within the Power 5 conferences told ESPN that the Big Ten conference was ready to throw in the towel on a season and they wanted to gauge whether or not the other four (ACC, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC) would fall in line. After the report broke many college football players took to social media to say they were hoping to play this season. The biggest superstar in college football at the moment is likely Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence and he tweeted: “Let’s work together to create a situation where we can play the game that all of us love. Not divide and argue. There is a way forward.” Lawrence posted another tweet with the hashtag #WeWantToPlay, which was shared by other players. Along with this tweet was a graphic outlining some of the players thoughts about playing this season that included the following: *We all want to play football this season. *Establish universal mandated health and safety procedures and protocols to protect college athletes against COVID-19 among all conferences throughout the NCAA. *Give players the opportunity to opt out and respect their decision. *Guarantee eligibility whether a player chooses to play the season or not. *Use our voices to establish open communication and trust between players and officials: ultimately create a College Football Players Association. Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields had similar sentiments tweeting: “There’s been too much work put in! #WeWantToPlay.” It’s understandable that many of the athletes want to do what they do best. If the commissioners of the Power 5 conferences are willing to cancel the season knowing full well that college football is the absolute biggest moneymaker for many universities around this country you know it’s a last ditch option. You know they feel certain that playing would be endangering lives. The “establish universal health and safety procedures and protocols” part of the graphic shared by Lawrence is where I believe college football would have the biggest trouble. I don’t think you can expect 18-22 year old college students to do the kind of things to keep themselves safe off the football field that would allow a football season to take place. Why? Because we’ve seen older professional athletes in other sports unable to do so. The NBA had Los Angeles Clippers star Lou Williams leave its Orlando bubble to attend to a family issue and he wound up at a strip club in Atlanta. Major League Baseball hasn’t gone the bubble route (which college football of course wouldn’t be able to do either) and has had even more issues with the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals organizations shut down for more than a week at a time due to COVID-19 outbreaks within the team, supposedly due to players not quarantining properly off the field. Just on Sunday the Cleveland Indians sent pitcher Zach Plesac home to quarantine for 72 hours because he left the team hotel to go out on the town in Chicago with friends the night before. If these pros getting paid millions of dollars to play a game can’t following the health protocols set forth by their respective leagues it’s unreasonable to think college student-athletes would follow the protocols. Nobody wants to see the college football (or any college sports) season canceled, but it’s simply the safest and most reasonable thing to do and frankly it’s what this country deserves for never taking this pandemic as seriously as it should have. Before the 2020 MLB season when baseball was setting health protocols to attempt to have a season during the COVID-19 pandemic one of the biggest no-nos the league mentioned was there was not to be benches clearing brawls among teams. On Sunday (August 10) during the Houston Astros v. Oakland Athletics game in Oakland, Calif. baseball had its first brawl of the season. In the seventh inning of the game A’s outfielder Ramon Laureano was hit by a pitch for the third time during the three-game series by Astros pitching and wasn’t happy with it. He pointed at Astros pitcher Humberto Castellanos and jawed with his as he headed to first base. Laureano then began exchanging words with Astros hitting coach Alex Cintron from the dugout before charging toward Cintron and the Astros dugout. Laureano was tackled by Astros catcher Dustin Garneau, who had been in the dugout, and both benches cleared. Due to COVID-19 protocols many players are sitting in the stands during games this season and those players left the stands to reach the field, as well. Laureano was ejected from the game.
It wasn’t the biggest brouhaha we’ve ever seen, but MLB has to come down harshly on this incident as they explicitly stated before the season this was not to happen. Baseball suspended Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Joe Kelly for eight games just for throwing behind an Astros batter a couple of weeks ago. Laureano’s actions actually put all the players involved in the game in danger by getting them all together without protective gear. In my opinion, Laureano should be suspended no fewer than 10 games for his actions on Sunday. Maybe sitting out for 1/6th of the shortened season would teach other players that baseball means business when it comes to its health protocols, especially in a season where we’ve already seen two franchises miss more than a week of action each over COVID-19 outbreaks. Cintron should probably get a 10-game suspension himself, if not even longer for being a coach and the fact that he should’ve known better. The NBA has a rule stating that if a fight breaks out on the court that any player leaving the bench area will automatically receive a one-game suspension, even if they don’t get involved in a skirmish. I don’t think baseball can do anything about those who entered the fray from the field or even really the dugouts because that would essentially be everybody receiving a suspension, but I do think if possible MLB should look into which players for these two organizations left the stands to get involved and suspend each of those players for one game. I realize this is a lot and typically not something that would result in punishment by the league, but in a special circumstances time like this season it would be an appropriate way to show players the league means business about the health protocols.
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