Former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley doesn't envisage this year's Open Championship being held due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The oldest major is due to start at Royal St Georges in Kent on July 16th and the organisers, the Royal and Ancient, issued a statement yesterday to say they are continuing to work through their options, including postponement.
However, McGinley told Off the Ball's Golf Weekly that he doesn't see it being played.
"From what I believe and what I understand and what I read, it's down to insurances. I know the R&A rely very heavily on the income of the Open Championship in order to sustain their business year on year. So, I am sure they have got a bulletproof insurance policy in place.
If that insurance policy is going to guarantee the income they would lose out, that's probably what they will do, they will cancel until next year. Looking from the outside, reading between the lines, that's what I think is probably going to happen."
The Masters, which was due to be held at Augusta next week and the US PGA Championship, slated for Harding Park in May, have both been postponed. The US Open is pencilled in for June in New York, but that's set to be shifted in the calendar.
McGinley says creative thinking will be required to host the American majors this year.
"If you put logic into it, the PGA Championship is meant to be played in San Francisco, the US Open is meant to be played in New York, two very badly infected areas at the moment. If you move both of those venues down to southern America, down to a San Diego or a Los Angeles or across to the TPC of Sawgrass in Florida, by doing that you move away from the badly infected areas for a start.
He added that weather across the pond may be on the side of golf happening again.
"Secondly, you are guaranteeing the weather right up until Christmas, you are buying yourself time. And you are buying good course conditioning right up until that time of the year.
You could go into November or even December if you wanted to play the major championships. So that would be a logical thing to do rather than keeping it in the north side of America where winter closes in a lot quicker."
For aficionados of the Masters and all that goes with it, McGinley hasn't lost hope that we will see a green jacket on someone's shoulders by the end of the year.
"In terms of the Masters, again, just like those other two in America. I know you can't with the changing of the grass in Augusta from the Bermuda to the ryegrass, you can't play there pretty much until the last week of September. So I could see a window from the last week in September right up until the first week in December as potentially being an opportunity to play the Masters as well.
You could well get three of the four major championships played around that window, should we go back to playing golf again, which we are all hoping for obviously."
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