Ryder Cup: Was it right for the contest to be postponed to 2021?
By Ali Stafford
Last Updated: 08/07/20 3:47pm
The Ryder Cup won't take place in 2020 and has been pushed back a year, but was it the right decision for the biennial contest to be postponed?
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An announcement was made on Wednesday that this year's event, scheduled to be held at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin from September 25-27, would be rearranged to take place in 2021.
The qualifying campaign for both teams had been severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with the PGA Tour only returning to action last month and the European Tour yet to resume since golf's coronavirus-enforced shutdown in mid-March.
Tournaments on the PGA Tour have been held without spectators and coronavirus cases are rising in many states across the USA, leaving much uncertainty surrounding whether a Ryder Cup in 2020 could have been played with crowds.
Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm were among the golfers to speak out against the idea of playing the contest without spectators, instead in favour of adding an extra year of Europe's trophy defence, with Brooks Koepka one of the Team USA players to offer a similar view.
The decision to postpone does bring its own financial and logistical complications, with the tournament now being squeezed into a condensed 2021 schedule that also includes a rearranged Olympics and coming at a huge cost to golf's governing bodies on both sides of the Atlantic.
Some have suggested that the contest should have gone ahead regardless, given the other high-profile sporting events being televised without crowds, while Thomas Bjorn - the winning captain in 2018 - pointed out that it's far from guaranteed that the world will have returned to normal 12 months down the line.
Was it right for the Ryder Cup to be postponed? Should the contest have gone ahead this September as planned, with or without fans? Have your say and cast your vote from the options above!
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