PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- The Players Championship will proceed without spectators thanks to the coronavirus outbreak, the PGA Tour announced while play continued Thursday during the first round.
Commissioner Jay Monahan had a news conference in which he said next week's Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Florida, and then the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play Championship in Austin, Texas, followed by the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio will also proceed without spectators because of the coronavirus.
"When you work on an event for a full year and are not able to share it with our fans, it hurts," Valspar tournament director Tracy West said.
"For the time being, this decision allows the PGA Tour, our fans and constituents to plan, prepare and respond as events develop,'' Monahan said. "This is a difficult situation, one with consequences that impact our players, fans and the communities in which we play.''
The tournament will continue through the weekend with essential personnel only, and decisions will be made on what type of support personnel or family of players would be permitted. For now, Monahan said, there would be no media access restrictions.
One golfer, C.T. Pan of Taiwan, decided that playing is not worth the risk.
"I chose to withdraw from the Players Championship because my wife and I want to protect ourselves from the risk of exposure to the coronavirus," he tweeted. "We are fine and our families are fine. Our lifestyle is like a circus, traveling from one place to another. We believe this is a time to exercise caution by not playing this week."
Pan, who is ranked 97th in the world, had a 2:02 p.m. ET tee time so had not started the tournament when he withdrew.
Monahan said he consulted with President Donald Trump and Florida governor Ron DeSantis earlier in the day as well as health authorities in each market where PGA Tour events are played.
DeSantis announced that he was discouraging large gatherings in Florida.
The PGA Tour said in a statement that the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship in the Dominican Republic -- set to begin March 26 -- would be postponed because of issues associated with international travel.
Monahan made his comments while the first round continued with spectators and while sporting events across the country were being canceled or postponed. The NBA had already suspended its season Wednesday. The Power 5 men's basketball tournaments were canceled Thursday, along with several other basketball tournaments.
The ATP tennis tour halted events for the next six weeks. The European Tour has suspended our canceled four of its tournaments.
"If you look at our venues, obviously we're an outdoor sport, we're not in a stadium, and here this week at TPC-Sawgrass our players are making their way around 400 acres,'' Monahan said. "Because of the nature of that and the fact you've got 144 players here and over the course of a round our players do generally social distance themselves, we felt like by taking this step to address the problem with our fans, we're in a position where we can continue to operate the events as of right now. ... We're comfortable having our players continue to play at this time.''
Monahan said every scenario was contemplated, including shutting down the tournament and future events and "that is something we'll continue to consider as we go forward.''
The tournaments impacted so far are the four leading up to the Masters next month at Augusta National in Georgia. So far, the club has referred to chairman Fred Ridley's statement from March 4 in which plans were proceeding to stage the event as scheduled.
Monahan said he was in touch with Augusta officials and "I'll leave it to Augusta to share their thinking when they're prepared to share their thinking.''