PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — After eight months of hosting events without fans, the PGA Tour recently began cautiously welcoming back a limited number of spectators to its tournaments. This week, at the celebrated Players Championship in Northeast Florida, the tour will take a leap with as many as 10,000 fans on the grounds, the most for any event this year.
A crowd of that size, however, poses a predicament for golf that sets it apart from most other sports, in which the spectators are generally confined to grandstands or at least enclosed within a stadium or arena.