PGA Tour to honor George Floyd, other lives lost with daily moment of silence

By: Sean Zak June 9, 2020

Demonstrators hold up signs at a protest in honor of George Floyd.

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As the PGA Tour returns this week, it will pause at 8:46 a.m. each day during the Charles Schwab Challenge for a moment of silence to honor George Floyd and other lives lost to racial and social injustice in America.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan informed players of the plans in a memo Tuesday morning.

According to the memo, an 8:46 a.m. time will be reserved within the tee times (to be released Tuesday afternoon) with no names attached to it. Each day, at 8:46 a.m. local time, horns will blow three times and those on-site will observe a one-minute moment of silence. The significance of 8:46 is that was how long (in minutes and seconds) former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the back of Floyd’s neck, pinning him to the street.

Monahan noted that in the last two weeks many players inquired about how the Tour would “continue the conversation” as it returns for the rest of the 2020 season, and this is one of the ways it intends to do so. “This is in an effort to amplify the voices and efforts underway to end systemic issues of racial and social injustices impacting our country,” Monahan wrote.

While the PGA Tour waited longer than most leagues to comment on the death of George Floyd or the nationwide protests that have followed, Monahan has been instructive in recent days. The commissioner wrote a letter to players and Tour employees (which was published online) guiding them to this article from Refinery29, titled “Your Black Colleagues May Look Like They’re Okay — Chances Are They’re Not.”

Monahan also sat down for a discussion with Harold Varner, one of just a few African-American golfers on the PGA Tour, to discuss the protests and his own thoughts on racial injustice in America. You can view that here.