The teams would miss seeing the fans, and presumably, the fans would miss seeing the teams.
Should this year’s Ryder Cup be played without spectators due to the coronavirus pandemic, the fans would also miss seeing a golf course in Wisconsin that’s hosted multiple major championships and sits picturesquely along Lake Michigan.
Opened in 1998 and designed by Pete Dye, Whistling Straits plays to a par-72 across its 7,790 yards. It’s a major championship course — the 2004, 2010 and 2015 PGA Championships and the 2007 U.S. Senior Open have been played there — and a public course, with a greens fee dependent on the time of year (it’s currently $195, but goes up to $315 on May 8 and $400 on May 22).
It’s also a course that should host a Ryder Cup with fans, Rory McIlroy said earlier this week, or not be played this year at all.
“If it came to whether they had to choose between not playing the Ryder Cup of playing it without fans,” McIlroy said Tuesday on an Instagram live stream sponsored by TaylorMade, “I would say just delay it a year.”