After a month of stoppage due to the global coronavirus pandemic, the PGA Tour has its restart date. The PGA Tour on Thursday announced an amended 2019-20 season as well as the fall portion of its 2020-21 season, and the prospects are certainly exciting.

Golf is scheduled to be back in mid-June with the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas. If all goes as scheduled, Colonial Country Club will host the tournament from June 11-14, almost three months to the day that the PGA Tour stopped playing after Round 1 of The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass in March.

"The health and safety of all associated with the PGA Tour and our global community continues to be our No. 1 priority, and our hope is to play a role -- responsibly -- in the world's return to enjoying the things we love," said commissioner Jay Monahan. "Today's announcement is another positive step for our fans and players as we look toward the future, but as we've stressed on several occasions, we will resume competition only when -- working closely with our tournaments, partners and communities -- it is considered safe to do so under the guidance of the leading public health authorities."

Play will resume on the PGA Tour with no fans in attendance over the first four events. Whether future events will be open to the general public remains to be seen as the PGA Tour will consult with national and local authorities in order to determine whether to allow fans to attend tournaments.

2019-20 PGA Tour schedule (revised)

  • June 11-14: Charles Schwab Challenge
  • June 18-21: RBC Heritage
  • June 25-28: Travelers Championship
  • July 2-5: Rocket Mortgage Classic
  • July 9-12: John Deere Classic
  • July 16-19: The Memorial Tournament
  • July 23-26: 3M Open
  • July 29-Aug. 2: WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational
  • July 29-Aug. 2: Barracuda Championship
  • Aug. 6-9: PGA Championship
  • Aug. 13-16: Wyndham Championship
  • Aug. 20-23: The Northern Trust
  • Aug. 27-30: BMW Championship
  • Sept. 4-7: Tour Championship

The Memorial Tournament, set for July 16-19, will take a spot previously held by the 2020 Open Championship, which was canceled by the R&A. The WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational slides into a spot previously held by the 2020 Olymics in Tokyo. 

The 2020 major championship season is tentatively scheduled to begin Aug. 6-9 with the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco -- although that location and date seems tenuous right now. 

The FedEx Cup Playoffs are next, followed by the Tour Championship, which will take place Sept. 4-7 at East Lake and end the 2019-20 season as the third and final playoff event. The FedEx Cup Playoff remain largely unaffected by all of this as the only change is a slight move back in the dates.

The 2020-21 season will start right away and consist of six majors if everything else goes as planned. So far, only the fall portion of that schedule has been announced with new dates for the U.S. Open and Masters.

2020-21 PGA Tour schedule (fall)

  • Sept. 10-13: Safeway Open
  • Sept. 17-20: U.S. Open
  • Sept. 24-27: Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship
  • Sept. 25-27: Ryder Cup
  • Oct. 1-4: Sanderson Farms Championship
  • Oct. 8-11: Shriners Hospitals for Children Open
  • Oct. 15-18: CJ Cup
  • Oct. 22-25: Zozo Championship
  • Oct. 29-Nov. 1: WGC-HSBC Champions
  • Oct. 29-Nov. 1: Bermuda Championship
  • Nov. 5-8: Houston Open
  • Nov. 12-15: Masters
  • Nov. 19-22: RSM Classic
  • Dec. 3-6: Mayakoba Golf Classic

A Military Tribute at the Greenbrier has been taken off the fall portion of the schedule (where it was last year) and will no longer be a PGA Tour event moving forward.

Despite all of these scheduled dates, everything remains fluid. Events could (and probably will) change in the weeks and months ahead, especially as regulations and guidelines are rolled out on a state and federal level. Things will be messy, especially for a sport in which so much travel (both domestic and international) is involved.

There is a glimmer of hope here that golf could return this summer and play its way through the rest of the year, even without fans at events. At this point, as long as every safety precaution is taken, this sounds like a bonanza of content for a sports world badly wanting that very thing.