[120th U.S. Open eve] All preparations are ready...Sung Kang tees off 8:12 p.m., tonight... (2024)

安寧하십니까? 2020年 9月 16日(水) 午後 1時 24分입니다.

(17일, 木, 새벽 3시 52분) 아, 오늘 밤부터 U.S.오픈이 개막합니다.

(9:06) 네 時에 나가서 여섯 바퀴를 채우고 8時 넘어서 돌아왔습니다, 네 時間...

(11:59) 막 일어나서, 새로운 새끼 고양이를 보고, 1997年 U.S.오픈을 보고 있습니다 (BBC中繼).

(午後 2時 59分) 이제 다섯 時間後에는 第120回U.S.오픈이 始作됩니다. 많이 설레입니다.JTBC가 아니고SBS골프에서 저녁 8時부터 中繼합니다.

(3:30) 지금 애플 노트팬을 쓰고 있습니다, 中國에서 만들었네요.

(4:29) iOS로 이동하는데 한 시간이 다 되었는데 아직...

Sep 14, 2020; Mamaroneck, New York, USA; Golfers walk down the second fairway during a practice round for the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot GC.

U.S. Open nearly moved to Los Angeles in December due to COVID-19

(Reuters)- This week’s U.S. Open at Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, New York, would likely have been played in December in Los Angeles had the British Open not been cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the United States Golf Association said on Wednesday.

The USGA, whose flagship event was originally set for mid-June, only settled on a September date once organisers of the British Open, which were also considering rescheduling for the same month, decided to cancel the 2020 edition.

USGA Chief Executive Mike Davis, speaking at Winged Foot on the eve of the tournament, said heads of the PGA Tour, European Tour and organisations that run the majors got together on a regular basis as the sporting world froze in March.

“To be very transparent with you, we thought we were going to be playing the U.S. Open in December in Los Angeles. We were that close,” Davis said.

“It really wasn’t until the day before we went public with the schedule that we realized that the R&A’s Open across the pond couldn’t be played in September, which gave us an opportunity to play in September.”

Davis also said there was a period of time where he had been hopeful the major would have been able to welcome a limited number of spectators on site.

Due to health and safety reasons the U.S. Open will instead be closed to the general public, as has every event on the PGA Tour since the circuit resumed play in mid-June after a three-month COVId-19 hiatus.

“There was a period of time ... that we thought we were going to have limited spectators here at Winged Foot,” said Davis.

“The state, and the county, the town of Mamaroneck, the members at Winged Foot had just been wonderful, but it really -- it wasn’t until several weeks out that we just realized there was no way to do this in a safe manner.”

First-round action at Winged Foot will begin at 6:50 a.m. ET(1050 GMT)on Thursday. American Gary Woodland is the defending champion.

Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, center, walks down the ninth fairway during a practice round for the US Open, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020, in New York.

Canceling British Open helped keep US Open at Winged Foot

WP/AP, Doug Ferguson, September 16, 2020

MAMARONECK, N.Y. — The USGA considers this U.S. Open a success even before the opening tee shot, mainly because it’s being played this year at Winged Foot. And that was seriously in doubt when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the spring.

Winged Foot is about 5 miles from one of the early hot spots of the coronavirus. Mike Davis, the CEO, said the USGA was on the verge of taking the U.S. Open to Los Angeles in December as its best chance of playing it in 2020.

That changed on April 6.

The R&A said it was canceling the British Open. The Masters took the November spot on the schedule. The PGA Championship moved from May to August.

John Bodenhamer, the senior managing director of championships, recalls being in a conference room at USGA headquarters on March 13 as sports started to shutdown, from the NCAA tournament to the NBA and NHL, The Players Championship in golf.

“It’s one of those days you’ll never forget,” he said.

Bodenhamer said the USGA’s medical advisers told them to be patient about the hot spot near Mamaroneck because that could change over time. From there, he said the objective was to let health and safety guide every decision, and to try to play as many USGA championship as possible.

“And third, our intention was always to play at Winged Foot,” Bodenhamer said. “And when that September date came, I can tell you Mike and I looked at each other. ‘Let’s go. Let’s do this.’”

The U.S. Open will be in California next year at Torrey Pines.

US OPEN ROTATION

The USGA announcing last week that another office and a modern test center would be built in Pinehurst, North Carolina, was also a step toward the U.S. Open developing a rotation of courses.

The U.S. Open now is committed to be at Pinehurst No. 2 five times through 2047. Still to be determined is what other courses the U.S. Open has in mind as a part of a rotation. Pebble Beach and Oakmont are obvious choices, while Shinneco*ck Hills and Winged Foot would seem to figure into the mix.

“We just believe after talking to a lot of the players who play in U.S. Opens, a lot of our past champions, they communicated a consistent message, saying, ‘‘We want to go to the best sites, and we want to go there more often,’” USGA CEO Mike Davis said Wednesday.

Davis said Nick Price, who serves on the USGA board, said once that it matters a little more to a U.S. Open champion when he wins on a reputable course.

“And I think all of us took that to heart,” Davis said.

RORY’S PERSPECTIVE

Players rarely talk about atonement or even a golf course owing them one.

Rory McIlroy believes that to be the case. He went through that at Augusta National after losing a four-shot lead in the final round at 2011. And he can see where some might wonder if Phil Mickelson feels that way at Winged Foot after a double bogey cost him the U.S. Open in 2006.

McIlroy won the next major, the U.S. Open at Congressional.

“I went into ‘12 at Augusta ... yeah, the memories that come back and things that you would have done differently, of course they all come back. But it didn’t feel like I was trying to get one over on the course or trying to settle a score.”

It’s different for Mickelson in one regard. McIlroy was 23 when he returned to Augusta National.Mickelson is 50upon returning to Winged Foot.

“I’m sure he’s made his peace with the fact that he may never win this tournament,” McIlroy said. “He could go out this weekend and blitz it, but at the same time, I think when you get to that stage in your life and everything, and his life has gone the way it has, his career, his family, everything seems to be in a good place, I think he’s probably made his peace with what happened here 14 years ago.”

PAIRINGS

Introductions can be in order at most U.S. Opens given the number of players that come start in local qualifiers and play on some of the smaller tours. That won’t be the case for the Canadian grouping.

Mackenzie Hughes, Corey Conners and Adam Hadwin played a practice round Wednesday. They’ll be together the next two days at Winged Foot.

No other countries were grouped together, such as England (10 players), Australia (9), South Korea (4),Franceor Japan (4 each).

Instead, the USGA seemed intrigued by the college pairings, with alumni from Oklahoma State, Arizona State and Georgia together. If that was the case, Hughes raised a good question Wednesday.

Why no love for Kent State?

Hughes, Conners and Taylor Pendrith each attended Kent State. A powerhouse? Maybe not, but the Ohio school did produce a major champion in Ben Curtis.

DIVOTS

From the caddie corner, Jimmy Johnson is back on the bag this week for Justin Thomas. He hasn’t caddied for the last month because of dizziness brought on by a change in his blood pressure medication. John Wood, who left Matt Kuchar last month, is now working for Cameron Champ. Wood and Champ are from Sacramento, California, and Wood was instrumental in getting him noticed on the junior scene. ...The USGA says it will use some Winged Foot caddies on longer holes to help serve as spotters for shots that go into the thick rough, especially with no spectators around.

Sami Valimaki, of Finland, smiles as he waits outside the clubhouse before practicing for the U.S. Open Championship, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, at the Winged Foot GC in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

From a frozen forest in Finland, Valimaki makes major debut

WP/AP, Doug Ferguson, September 16, 2020

MAMARONECK, N.Y. — His first trip to America for his first major championship came a lot sooner than Sami Valimaki would have imagined, and it didn’t take long for him to realize he was in a world far removed from a freezing forest in Finland.

Winged Foot was unlike any course he had ever seen, the fairways lined by trees and framed by rough that covered the tops of his shoes. The greens have moguls that would be ideal for skateboards if the U.S. Open wasn’t being held this week.

And then the 22-year-old Finn had another eye-opener.

He ran into Tiger Woods.

“I don’t speak to him,” Valimaki said with a wide smile, “but I saw him.”

Woods was almost a mythical figure to Valimaki, whose only access to golf’s biggest star — and to golf’s biggest tournaments — were on television. His favorite event remains the Ryder Cup in Paris, the ultimate dream to play. His only U.S. Open memories were from Shinneco*ck Hills two years ago.

That was right about the time Valimaki, a promising European amateur,began his mandatory military service in Finland. It was only six months. The drills including shooting rifles. And it involved what amounts to a survival test that sounds a lot tougher than anything he faces in the U.S. Open.

“We stayed in a forest, living there two weeks in a row. It was minus 25 Celsius,” he said, pausing for an attempt to convert that to Fahrenheit(minus 13)until giving up. “Super, super cold. That was a rough time.”

In a U.S. Open without qualifying because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Valimaki is among those provided an avenue to Winged Foot through the “UK Swing” on the European Tour.

His original plan was the 36-hole qualifier in England, typically in May, which was wiped out when golf shut down from March until July in Europe. But after a slow start upon golf’s return, Valimaki tied for sixth and was runner-up in consecutive events at Celtic Manor in Wales, and he was on his way.

“He’s been playing very, very well,” Rasmus Hojgaard said.

Hojgaard, a 19-year-old Dane, is another promising young European who appears to be going places quickly. Similar to the path Valimaki has taken — minus the two weeks in a freezing forest — Hojgaard got his start in the Nordic Golf League, made his way to the Challenge Tour and then European Tour Q-school, and already has won twice this year. The most recent was the UK Championship at The Belfry to secure his spot at Winged Foot.

Even without spectators, there is more traffic on the course than they are used to seeing from broadcasters, USGA officials, volunteers, media and support staff ranging from coaches to equipment manufacturers.

“It’s been different,” Valimaki said. “It’s more competition, more people out here. I just want to enjoy the week.”

Valimaki didn’t appear out of nowhere when he decided to give up hockey for golf. His parents brought him to Nokia River Course in Finland as a boy, and a sport where it was all up to him appealed to him.

“If you want to win, you win alone,” he said.

Golfing idols are hard to find in Finland, the most accomplished being Mikko Ilonen, who won the 2000 British Amateur and in 2007 became the first Finnish golfer to win on the European Tour.

Valimaki was part of Finland’s team that won the European Amateur Team Championship in 2018. He reached as high as No. 10 in the world amateur ranking before it was time for his mandatory military stint.

As a sportsman, he was allowed to practice golf once a week “and then nothing else.” He turned pro when his service ended at age 20 with a goal only of aiming as high as he could.

He won his first tournament as a professional on the Pro Golf League in Germany, one of four wins on that circuit that gave him status on the Challenge Tour. But he earned his European Tour card through Q-school, and in his sixth event as a rookie, holed a 20-foot putt to force a playoff and won the Oman Open.

And then the pandemic happened.

“The first month was the toughest because you don’t know when you will play again,” he said.

He missed the cut in three straight events, went back to Finland to see his coach and has registered nothing but top 10s ever since. That’s what got him to New York for the U.S. Open. He hopes this is only the start.

Bryson DeChambeau stands at the second tee during practice before the U.S. Open Championship at Winged Foot GC, Monday, Sept. 14, 2020, in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

In the thick of it: DeChambeau ready to rip at U.S. Open

WP/AP, Jimmy Golen, September 16, 2020

The matchup to watch at Winged Foot this week could be Bryson DeChambeau’s thick biceps against the USGA’s thick rough.

Golf’s long-hitting mad scientist said he plans to use his driver plenty when the pandemic-delayed U.S. Open tees off in Mamaroneck, New York, starting Thursday. Despite the narrow fairways and potentially penalizing rough along the par-70, 7,477 yard course, DeChambeau insisted that he won’t be playing it safe off the tee.

“I’m hitting it as far as I possibly can up there,” he said. “There’s certain holes I might lay up on just because of the situation, but for the most part I’m going to be trying to go after it as much as I possibly can.”

DeChambeau, who turned 27 on Wednesday, was already a pretty big hitter when he decided to gain 40 pounds of muscle mass this year to help fuel a swing speed that propels his drives at 200 mph. It’s paying off: He is leading the tour in driving distance, with an average of 322.1 yards; in the second round of the Travelers, his tee shot off No. 10 went 422 yards -- the sixth-longest drive on tour all year.

DeChambeau faltered during the FedEx Cup playoffs after a strong summer run, including a tie for fourth in the PGA Championship — his only top 10 in a major.

But this is the U.S. Open.

“Our U.S. Open DNA is about placing a premium on accuracy off the teeing area,” said John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s senior director of championships. “We think that premium — by driving a player to drive his ball into the fairway and hit his approach shot from the fairway onto these magnificent putting green complexes and keeping the ball below the hole — is key.”

Bodenhamer said the USGA will “let Winged Foot be Winged Foot” -- in other words, they don’t need to do anything to make the course tougher. At Merion, they narrowed the fairways and made the rough super thick; at Shinneco*ck, they put the pins in tough spots as the greens were baking out.

But at Winged Foot, the doglegs, deep bunkers and complex greens are enough of a challenge that grass growing some 5 inches along the fairway should be more than enough of a test.

“It’s really not about what the rough entails, it’s about getting the ball in the fairway,” Bodehamer said. “That the more off-line you are, the more penalty you’re going to face.”

Dechambeau will put that to the test.

“Even if I hit it in the rough, I still feel like I can make birdies out here,” he said.

Defending champion Gary Woodland said he thinks the course will be a “huge advantage” for players like himself and DeChambeau, who would be hitting wedges out of the rough. Those who might need to pull out a 7-iron won’t be able to get enough speed through the heavy grass to reach the green.

“I don’t think the long hitters really ever get penalized because of rough,” Woodland said. “Because I think you’re going to have a huge advantage any time you get the golf ball in the fairway.”

Rory McIlroy, who won the tournament in 2011, also thinks the long hitters have the advantage -- if they can also keep it straight.

“It’s the way that the modern game has went: The longer you can hit it, the more advantage you have,” he said. “But I’d still take hitting fairways over hitting it 350 in the rough here.”

A tough US Open and letting ‘Winged Foot be Winged Foot’

By DOUG FERGUSON, September 16, 2020

MAMARONECK, N.Y.(AP)— Waiting for the green to clear ahead, Sergio Garcia looked behind him at the five holes he played Wednesday at Winged Foot and recited a list of clubs that rarely come out of his bag.

A 6-iron into the opening par 4. A 5-iron on the next hole. He had just finished the fifth hole, where he smoked a driver and had 4-iron into the green, pin-high and about 35 feet to the left.

That’s just getting to the green.

Patrick Reed stood in deep rough about a yard beyond the green on the first hole, hit a gentle flop and watched it roll down a ridge, feed over to another slope and run off the front of the green.

Welcome to Winged Foot, and a U.S. Open that needs no introduction. Narrow fairways. Thick rough. Tough greens. It’s a simple formula that for years defined the American championship, one that has been missing in recent years by trying new venues (Chambers Bay and Erin Hills) or getting gentle weather (Pebble Beach).

And there were times when the USGA tried to influence the degree of difficulty, such as the pin positions and green speeds on Saturday at Shinneco*ck Hills.

None of that appears necessary at Winged Foot, the century-old design that has yielded only two 72-hole scores under par in the five U.S. Opens it has hosted since 1929.

“Something would have to go seriously wrong to get into the realms of goofy golf,” Rory McIlroy said.

No one expects the winner to break par this week, even with the move from June to September, and no one expects the USGA to have to do much to tinker with the West course.

And no one summed up the test better than John Bodenhamer, the senior managing director of championships for the USGA and the person in charge of setting up the course.

“We will let Winged Foot be Winged Foot,” he said.

His comment was inspired from digging through history of U.S. Opens at Winged Foot. A reporter wanted to know if the USGA was going to toughen the course in 1929. Bodenhamer cited this reply from course architect A.W. Tillinghast:

“We’re not going to outfit Miss Winged Foot in any different way than she otherwise would be. No fancy clothes, no special jewelry ... just wash her face up for the party, and she’ll be good enough.”

The final dress rehearsal was Wednesday. Tiger Woods out first in the morning dew by himself, gearing up for a course where he is 18-over par in six previous rounds — four at the 1997 PGA Championship, two at the 2006 U.S. Open, the first time he missed the cut at a major as a pro.

The measure of a difficult U.S. Open for years was how loudly players complained. Jack Nicklaus always talked about ruling players out when he heard them griping about the conditions. But that’s the highest compliment Winged Foot can receive. It tends to produce the highest scores and the fewest complaints.

No one is keeping score just yet.

“Listen, the players haven’t put a pencil in their hand yet, so we’ll wait and see,” said Mike Davis, the CEO of the USGA. “I think you go back 125 years, and there’s a little bit of history of it being a tough week. And when you think about some of the greatest U.S. Open players of all time — Bob Jones, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods — you never heard them complain. They accepted the challenge.

“Part of the lore of a U.S. Open is it’s a very tough golf course, hopefully set up in a fair but a stern manner, and we are just poised for a wonderful week here at Winged Foot.”

The field is only 144 players, the smallest since there were 143 players in 1932, because of the move to September and the loss of nearly three hours of daylight. There also was no qualifying for the first time in more than a century because of the coronavirus pandemic. And like every tournament since golf resumed, there will be no spectators.

Winged Foot still might be more crowded than other tournament, mainly because of more volunteers required to help find tee shots in the rough. That’s what the U.S. Open brings that other tournaments haven’t. Big crowds lead to thick grass that is trampled down by the end of the week. And this is some seriously thick grass.

“If you get it outside the rope lines this week, it’s going to be significant,” Bodenhamer said.

The forecast is good, perhaps the coolest U.S. Open outside of Pebble Beach or Olympic Club in San Francisco. The players? Golf is getting so deep that five players have taken turns at No. 1 this year, the most for a calendar year since the world ranking began in 1986. Dustin Johnson occupies that spot now and is the betting favorite.

The star attraction is Winged Foot, as always.

“We have seen a couple of U.S. Opens where it might have gotten away from them,” said Webb Simpson, who won at Olympic Club in 2012. “When a golf course gets away from you, you’re bringing in luck. ... I think there have been setups in the past where you could argue that a great golfer with a good amount of luck won that week. But you’re not going to have that here at Winged Foot. Whoever wins on Sunday is the best golfer here for the week.”

Louis Oosthuizen plays a shot off the 12th tee during practice

Chan Kim plays a shot on the 11th fairway during practice for the U.S. Open Championship at Winged Foot GC, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020, in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

Patrick Cantlay walks the 12th fairway during practice

Tiger Woods walks the second green during practice

Tiger Woods watches his shot from the third fairway during practice

Tiger Woods watches his shot off the fourth tee during practice

Tiger Woods hits from a bunker on the fifth fairway during practice

Tiger Woods watches his shot off the sixth tee during practice

Golfers, give thanks! How Winged Foot gifted us the mulligan

By EDDIE PELLS, September 16, 2020

Massacre. Mickelson. Mulligan.

To recite the history of Winged Foot is to parade through a veritable vocabulary list of mishaps and misreads — a mashup of bad things that happen to good people when a golf course isn’t set up so much to identify the best player as to humble him.

Years before the U.S. Open and Winged Foot became widely known as one of the most diabolical duos in major championship golf, one member of the club had the temerity — or maybe the foresight — to ask for a do-over.

His name: David Mulligan.

Mulligan lent his moniker to the second chances that pretty much everyone has partaken in on golf courses across America. That he was a member of Winged Foot seems especially apropos, given that it has long been almost universally regarded as one of the most difficult tests in golf, especially when the USGA gets its hands on it.

“The last 18 holes are very difficult,” Jack Nicklaus said back in 1974 after “The Massacre at Winged Foot” left Hale Irwin holding the U.S. Open trophy with a spiffy four-day score of 7-over par.

Legend has it that decades before the “Massacre,” and a couple of generations before Phil Mickelson’s infamous 18th hole meltdown at Winged Foot in 2006, Mulligan embarked on his quest for a new beginning.

According to one of a handful of versions of the story, Mulligan, a Canadian hotel man and part owner of the Biltmore in New York City, arrived in a rush to his regular game, teed it up and, in his words, “hit a ball off the first tee that was long enough but not straight.”

Mulligan continued in a newspaper interview that was reprinted inGolf Journalin 1985 :

“I was so provoked with myself that, on impulse, I stooped over and put down another ball. The other three looked at me with considerable puzzlement, and one of them asked, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m taking a correction shot,’ I replied. ‘What do you call that?’ inquired (one of his friends). Thinking fast, I told him that I called it a ‘mulligan.’”

Over the years, the story has precipitated its fair share of double takes. There are no fewer than four versions of the origin of the mulligan, not all of which count Mr. Mulligan as the shot’s true namesake. Odds are, Mulligan took his first true mulligan at a course in Canada. But it also could’ve been in New Jersey.

The preponderance of evidence, however, points toward Mr. Mulligan as the inventor, and there is little doubt he was a member at Winged Foot — rendering the yearning for do-overs eminently relatable for this week.

“Knowing this golf course and the history, they have a reputation to maintain,” said Jon Rahm, in anticipation of what could await.

The last time the U.S. Open was at Winged Foot, nobody would’ve thought twice about giving Colin Montgomerie a mullie after he swapped out his 6-iron for a 7-iron, then laid sod over an approach shot on 18 that could have set him up for a major title he never won.

If Montgomerie was due one re-do, then Mickelson could’ve asked for, and easily been granted, three: the trash-can tee shot on 17, the driver on 18 and the ensuing misguided attempt to go for the green from near the hospitality tent.

“I’m such an idiot,” he said in the aftermath of the meltdown.

Merriam-Webster defines mulligan as “a free shot sometimes given a golfer in informal play when the previous shot was poorly played.”

The USGA? Hardly so liberal.

Nowhere will you find the word “mulligan” among the 24 Rules of Golf, which has plenty of instructions for shots that must be replayed, almost all of them involving the addition of a penalty stroke or two.

Handicapping rules, though they don’t explicitly mention mulligans, do allow for workarounds for those who don’t play out certain holes per the rules of golf.

Of course, anyone who takes a mulligan probably should clear it with whomever they’re playing against. David Mulligan ran into that problem himself the day he made the unilateral decision to take his mulligan — a shot widely known these days as a “breakfast ball” — off the first tee.

“They laughed and let me play the second ball. But after the match, which we won by one point, there was considerable discussion in the clubhouse about that free shot,” he said in his interview. “It all worked out amicably enough, but after that it became kind of an unwritten rule in our foursome that you could take an extra shot on the first tee if you weren’t satisfied with your original.”

The rest, as they say, is history. The mulligan, thanks to the man from Winged Foot, gives us a chance to rewrite it.

Phil Mickelson carries two buckets of balls as he heads to the range prior to a practice round before the U.S. Open Championship, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, at the Winged Foot GC in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

Tiger Woods walks the 11th fairway during practice

The pin flag for the 18th green flutters in the afternoon breeze during a practice round

A door attendant wears a protective mask outside the clubhouse on the second day of practices

Column: Tiger Woods in need of some magic at US Open

By TIM DAHLBERG, September 16, 2020

By now, Tiger Woods should have had a chance to defend his Masters title. By now, there should be an answer for his rabid fans about just how much time they should devote to cheering him on in the U.S. Open.

But in a year where answers are hard to come from anywhere, there isn’t a simple one about his chances of winning a fourth U.S. Open.

It’s so complicated that even Woods seems to be having problems figuring it out.

“This year I really haven’t putted as well as I wanted to, and the times I did make a few swing mistakes, I missed it in the wrong spots,” Woods said Tuesday. “Consequently, I just didn’t have the right looks at it. I’ve compounded mistakes here and there that ended up not making me able to make pars or a birdie run, and consequently I haven’t put myself in contention to win events.”

Don’t feel bad if that seemed difficult to follow. With Woods, we’ve been guessing at things for years.

Is his back OK? Is he rusty from not playing enough? How about the putter?

And add this one into the mix for this tournament: At the age of 44, will he be able to match players two decades younger when it comes to hacking out of the rough and steadying himself on the 6-footers for par?

We’ll know soon enough, with Woods teeing off early Thursday at Winged Foot in a pairing that includes two players who, unlike Woods, have a lot more professional golf in their future than they do in their past. One of them, newly crowned PGA champion Collin Morikawa, wasn’t even born when Woods won his first PGA Tour event in 1996, while Justin Thomas, until last month, was officially the best player in golf.

Oddsmakers don’t exactly fancy his chances, making Woods a35-1shot to edge closer to the biggest record he doesn’t hold in golf — the 18 majors won by Jack Nicklaus. Woods himself doesn’t sound terribly confident, even if he’s not quite ready yet to take his place as an elder statesman of golf.

“I think it gets harder to win as we all age,” he said.

Compounding the issue for Woods this week isn’t necessarily the length of Winged Foot, which stretches nearly 7,500 yards with a par of 70. He’s plenty long to still be competitive with players like Thomas and Morikawa, even if they will likely be outdriving him in the opening rounds.

It’s what happens when he can’t find the fairway and needs to scramble that will be the toughest part. By all accounts, the rough at Winged Foot is brutal, which means Woods will need to overcome mistakes off the tee with the kind of short game that has won him 15 majors.

Unfortunately, the putts under 10 feet that used to be automatic for Woods are automatic no longer. It doesn’t help that he missed the FedEx Cup Playoffs and hasn’t played competitively in three weeks.

There’s also the fact that in six rounds in two major championships at Winged Foot, Woods is a combined 18-over-par. That includes the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, where Woods shot 76-76 and missed the cut.

Still, as his magical win at the Masters last year reminded everyone, it would be a mistake to sell him short.

“When I won the Masters last year I was not feeling particularly well prior to that,” Woods said. “My neck was bothering me. I didn’t play in Bay Hill. For some reason I felt physically better and my training sessions felt good. I changed shafts in my driver right before the event, and I was able to start turning the ball over. Then all of a sudden I put myself in contention and I wasn’t really — I wasn’t leading but I was near the lead, and each day I progressively got a little bit better, and come Sunday, I put all the pieces together.”

Could that happen again at Winged Foot, a course that doesn’t have the wide fairways of Augusta National and is lined with deep rough? A course that Woods doesn’t know nearly as well and hasn’t had previous success?

Woods isn’t making predictions, and anyone else is simply guessing. Things tend to happen in golf that can’t be predicted, as evidenced by Morikawa’s win at the PGA Championship last month in his first major as a professional.

One thing is clear: Time is running out on Woods if he is to add four more major titles to break the record he wants the most. And snagging one during a pandemic would be a perfect springboard heading into the Masters in November, where he will be the defending champion.

Meanwhile, don’t forget: He is Tiger Woods.

Tiger Woods is interviewed during practices before the U.S. Open Championship at Winged Foot GC, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

Tiger Woods watches his shot off the 12th tee during practice before the U.S. Open Championship at Winged Foot GC, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020

Tiger Woods walks the 11th green during practice

Tiger Woods tosses a ball onto the 11th green during practice

What makes Collin Morikawa a success? Just ask his business school lecturer.

WP, Chuck Culpepper, September 16, 2020

MAMARONECK, N.Y. — On Long Island, a PGA Championship wound down. In Berkeley, Calif., a graduation ceremony revved up.

On Long Island at noon, the great Brooks Koepka had a great seven-shot lead. In Berkeley simultaneously at 9 a.m. Pacific time, the threat of some freaky Bay Area lightning shooed the commencement indoors.

On Long Island on Sunday, May 19, 2019, Koepka would steel his way through some unexpected hairiness. In Berkeley that same day, almost 400 souls who had steeled themselves through the University of California’s Haas School of Business would walk their way across the stage from undergraduates to alumni.

Had anyone guessed then who might succeed Koepka as PGA champion come 2020, they reasonably might have scanned that PGA leader board from Koepka himself all the way down to the cut victims. But for keen soothsaying, they should have looked indoors at Berkeley, amid the caps and gowns and episodic rowdiness, among the graduates headed to firms such as Barclays and Accenture, where a student speaker quoted Jay-Z: “I’m not a businessman; I’m a business, man.”

Well, if that isn’t the next PGA Championship winner right there on video, the guy who will start a U.S. Open at Winged Foot at 8:07 a.m. on a Thursday in September 2020 with fellow PGA winners Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas. Here he comes in a black cap and gown and a yellow Cal stole and a pink lei, 30 minutes into the introductions of graduates, up the little stairs, right behind his chum, golf teammate and Haas teammate KK Limbhasut. They wait through one of those cheering ruckuses for a guy two places ahead, and then when the speaker finally gets to say Limbhasut’s name, Collin Morikawa applauds his friend.

Then comes Morikawa, to near-silence, what with family members strewn in different buildings at video monitors. There he goes across the stage, a marvel who will win the 102nd PGA in San Francisco at age 23 in August 2020 and who will give a prudent nitpicking of language when asked what he expected back in spring 2019: “They are not expectations. They are goals.”

Here’s a native Southern Californian from beneath the San Gabriel Mountains who would jump onto the PGA Tour with his seven exemptions to start; finish 14th at the Canadian Open off the bat; finish second in his fourth start; finish fourth in his fifth start and first in his sixth; and win thrice in his first 14 months, including that major with one of the great eagles in golf history, that Sunday rip to the green on the par-4 No. 16.

Also, here’s a guy who refused to let the exacting demands of a vicious sport encroach upon the exacting demands of a rigorous business curriculum.

“Corporate finance class,” Stephen W. Etter, the lecturer of that class and a founding partner in Greyrock Capital Group, said in a telephone interview. “People in the class were going to Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, all of them, and he was going toe-to-toe with all of them. He was there to learn as much as he could.” Morikawa and Limbhasut sat up front “because we really respect [Etter],” Limbhasut said, a respect that became returned toward both.

“He knew he was going to go to the tour,” Etter said of Morikawa. “He didn’t take it lightly. He was just as driven and competitive in the class. He wasn’t going to finish second just because he didn’t have to worry about it. For him, he was going to get an A. That was his job.” And: “Collin would be the first to volunteer and present his individual or group’s solution to a financial case.” And: “Many times people will hide in the back of the room. Collin was in the front row and ready to go.”

Etter, who has advised Cal athletes such as the NFL-bound Marshawn Lynch, Jared Goff, Justin Forsett and Michael Mohamed, finds athletes uncommonly suited for the vagaries of business because they know the vagaries of heroism and goat-ism. He credits Morikawa’s “unbelievable ability to recognize his mistake, accept it and move right along,” his “warm sense to him,” his “confidence without attitude” (a Haas motto), his “intellectual curiosity,” his amiable personality.

“He really has an inner strength,” Etter said, and it showed in a knack rare in college students — or anyone: “He didn’t have an issue [giving] an answer that is wrong. He came back with another question.”

To this disgusting pile of attributes, add time management. Said Limbhasut, who is progressing through golf’s Class AAA league, the Korn Ferry Tour: “You miss so much school in a year. You travel all around. We play in fall and spring. You miss a lot of classes. So you need to be on top of that.” He said it’s “definitely difficult but manageable” and entails “a lot of studying in hotel rooms.”

“I think if we talk about managing time,” Morikawa said Tuesday at Winged Foot, “being efficient is what I think I do. Going through college, finishing it in four years, getting my degree, my business degree, I had to be efficient. I couldn’t just show up and get things done and have time pass by and realize, ‘Okay, I’m in my fourth year.’ I had to know what was going to be done and when. I think that’s just kind of who I am, so I’ve brought that here. I bring that to how I practice. If you look at me, I’m not pounding balls on the range until sunset. I just get things done when I need to.”

Even in Morikawa’s junior year at Cal, Limbhasut said, he began working toward not wasting the PGA Tour chances he would get post-graduation. So when the major came — and came fast — it … made sense. “We have seen what he played like for four years, and we know this guy’s really special,” Limbhasut said. “Not too often a four-time all-American comes around. There’s no weakness in his game.”

And through the TV in August, Etter kept seeing intermittent flashes of the student and the alumnus he felt lucky to know. “I was sitting at home,” he said, “with tears in my eyes.”

Collin Morikawa won the PGA Championship last month.

See Also

Obituaries | Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Irwin, left, won the 1974 Open with a score of 287, seven over par and two strokes better than Forrest Fezler, right.

For Irwin, it was a dream come true. Literally. He said that a few months before he had a dream he would win the Open. Irwin didn’t tell anybody except his wife, Sally.

While many players may have been intimidated by Winged Foot, that wasn’t the case with Irwin, an All-Big Eight Conference safety for the University of Colorado.

His approach was similar to how he might tackle a fullback.

“You didn’t take it head on,” said Irwin, who said his goal the whole week was to keep the ball under the hole so he wasn’t putting downhill.

For Watson, who shot a 79 in the final round, it was far from a total loss.

He was having a beer in the clubhouse afterward when he was approached by Byron Nelson, who offered to help him with his game. They wound up working together a few years later. Watson went on to become one of the game’s great champions, with eight major titles, including five British Opens.

Irwin also became a great champion, capturing the U.S. Open in 1979 and 1990, and won 45 times as a senior player.

“As a younger man, winning the U.S. Open was my goal,” said Irwin, who was 29 when he prevailed at Winged Foot. “I had achieved that, but that didn’t mean I wanted to stop.”

Hale Irwin said that a few months before the 1974 U.S. Open he had a dream he would win the tournament.

No Fans at the U.S. Open Changes Golf’s Revenue Picture

The tournament is the sport’s biggest moneymaker in the U.S., but this year’s coronavirus restrictions have lowered expectations.

NYT, Paul Sullivan, Sept. 16, 2020

Walking up the 18th hole at Winged Foot’s West Course in early September, it was hard to believe that the 2020 United States Open was just a few weeks away.

Some things were the same. The rough was U.S. Open thick — over three inches at that point, with plans for it to reach five inches by Sunday’s final round. The fairways were pristine. The undulating greens were rolling just a little slower than they will during the championships. And the venerable gothic clubhouse, with its blue and white patio awning, loomed over the course.

But there was not a grandstand, concession tent, merchandise pavilion or corporate suite to be seen.

With strict protocols from the State of New York in place because of the coronavirus, the championship is being played at the Mamaroneck, N.Y., course without fans. Instead of 45,000 people filling the course, and spending money, just 430 will be allowed on site, with each expected, per the state, to be there to work, and a total maximum of 2,000 people on site per day.

The absence of the infrastructure that defines a typical U.S. Open is good for the condition of the club’s second course, which is used to stage much of what gets built, but it’s bad for the revenue-generating potential of an event that accounts for 75 percent of the annual budget of the United States Golf Association, the governing body of golf in America.

Simply put, no fans at the course means less money to give to the scores of nonprofits that count on the U.S.G.A.

In any given year, this one championship generates about$165 million, and some $70 million from that goes to support the game of golf, including all the other U.S.G.A. championships, as well as youth golf programs, regional golf chapters and agronomic research. It is the only one of 14 championships that makes a profit.

Dramatic bunkers frame the 10th hole at Winged Foot.

(The U.S.G.A.’s annual budget is $210 million, with additional money coming from fees the U.S.G.A. charges for things like maintaining a golf handicap and entering the championships.)

And all of that revenue was in jeopardy as the coronavirus was paralyzing New York in the months leading up to June, when the U.S. Open is always played. The coronavirus was ravaging the area around Winged Foot. Golf events were being canceled. A nearby town was a hot zone. It looked as if there might not be a U.S. Open.

“Not having it would have caused us to have to rethink the support that is offered to other great areas focused on growing the game,” said Craig Annis, chief brand officer for the U.S.G.A. “We would have had to make sacrifices.”

It was no secret that the U.S.G.A. looked to stage the U.S. Open at other courses like Oakmont CC near Pittsburgh, a course considered a stern test of golf on any day; Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina; and Riviera CC, in Los Angeles. The association’s goal was to find a way to hold the championship this year.

“We considered other locations and other dates,” Mr. Annis said. “Winged Foot was always our priority, and frankly to have it in what was the epicenter of the pandemic, to be a rallying cry for a community that was hit the hardest in the country, was meaningful.”

In March, New York State opened a drive-through coronavirus testing site in nearby New Rochelle, N.Y.

Still, the money won’t be what it normally is. Mr. Annis said the organization was able to reduce expenses in hosting only four of 14 championships: the United States Amateur and United States Women’s Amateur and the U.S. and Women’s U.S. Opens.

The association is expecting lower revenues, and the money saved by not building tents and bleachers won’t make up for it.

“There’s still the prospect of a financial impact on the organization going forward,” he said. “Our goal was to have a U.S. Open in a safe way that puts health and safety first. We didn’t come at the situation from a financial perspective.”

While funding is looking more secure now for recipient organizations, it wasn’t certain that this year’s grants would happen.

“From a straight fund-raising standpoint, there was so much uncertainty in March and April that everyone was nervous,” said Greg McLaughlin, chief executive of First Tee, which combines golf instruction with mentoring. It has received over $26 million from the U.S.G.A. since it was founded in 1997.

Every year the U.S.G.A. provides grant money to chapters of First Tee in areas where the U.S.G.A. is hosting championships. This year 51 chapters qualified for the$325,000grant, but 10 of those championships were canceled, meaning the link to those areas was gone.

“That support is really vital for us and our chapters to continue to thrive in a very challenging economic environment,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “No. 1, it’s needed funding in an otherwise difficult year. But No. 2, receiving a grant from the U.S.G.A is a bit of a gold star when you go out and solicit other grants.”

Those chapters where championships were canceled still received their funding, but the organization will lose a chance to raise awareness and donations by being at the U.S. Open.

Last year at the Open at Pebble Beach, Calif., Mr. McLaughlin said, the U.S.G.A. set up a First Tee tent in a prime location near one of the entrances.

Geoff Ogilvy during the final round of the 2006 Open at Winged Foot, which he went on to win.

Girls Golf, which works with girls to teach them golf and life skills, was hit with a double whammy in March. It receives$1 millionfrom the U.S.G.A. and the L.P.G.A., the governing body for women’s golf, which halted its season in March.

“We didn’t really know what was going to happen,” said Nancy Henderson, chief teaching officer and president of the L.P.G.A. Foundation. “Our initial focus was our Girls Golf sites weren’t able to do programming in person, so we moved a lot of it online.”

While grants from both organizations came through, Ms. Henderson remains worried about next year. “That’s the big question,” she said. “You don’t know if you’ll be back to a new normal.”

Organizations like these, which are focused on growing the game of golf, share $25 million from the U.S. Open, the same amount that goes to fund the other 13 championships. The remaining $20 million is divided equally among agronomic research and the organization’s governance, rules and handicap systems.

For Winged Foot, the lack of fans is a mixed bag. Clubs that host a U.S. Open do it for different reasons. At Pebble Beach, Pinehurst or Torrey Pines in California, which hosts next year, the Open acts like a four-day marketing brochure for these resorts.

But at some of the private clubs in the rotation, like Winged Foot, Oakmont and the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., where the 2022 Open is to be held, hosting a U.S. Open is part of the club’s identity. It’s a hassle the membership tolerates in return for some remuneration and far greater prestige in the golf world.

This year, the Winged Foot membership is accepting that it’s going to be different, just as it is for other organizations around New York impacted by the coronavirus.

Winged Foot’s empty clubhouse.

Bryan Marsal, a Winged Foot member and the chairman of this Open, said all sides had to adjust their expectations. Two years of planning were scrapped in March, and then a plan for a reduced championship was scrapped again when the U.S.G.A. announced there would be no fans.

“Our compensation was based on the number of fans that came to watch the tournament, plus the amount of merchandise that was sold in the merchandise tent, plus the corporate tents that were sold and the rental of the property,” he said. “We’ve had a 90 percent reduction in the revenue going to the club.”

But he took a long view. “When you do business with someone, it’s a partnership,” he said. “You win, they win. You lose, they lose,”

And because there is a U.S. Open in some form, with the television revenue and some advertising dollars from sponsors, the U.S.G.A. can continue funding its nonprofit partners and hope for better next year.

Tiger Woods during a practice round on Wednesday for the United States Open at Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

Adam Scott reacts on the sixth hole during practice before the U.S. Open Championship at Winged Foot GC, Monday, Sept. 14, 2020, in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

Australian PGA tournament postponed to February

BRISBANE, Australia — The Australian PGA tournament has been postponed to February because of uncertainties over coronavirus-enforced restrictions.

The PGA of Australia on Wednesday said the European Tour co-sanctioned golf tournament, scheduled for early December at Royal Queensland in Brisbane, is now tentatively scheduled for Feb. 18-21, but the status of the event will be reviewed again in December.

It follows the postponement of November’s Australian Open at Melbourne’s Kingston Heath to sometime next year. Victoria state is experiencing a second wave of COVID-19 infections and deaths, and the city of Melbourne is in lockdown with nightly curfews.

“The uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic makes it extremely difficult to stage events at the level we would normally expect,” PGA of Australia chief executive Gavin Kirkman said. “Our new date will be subject to health regulations and will be reviewed again in early December, when we expect to be armed with a more accurate prediction of COVID-19′s impact across the country during summer.

“At that time we will determine whether the event will proceed in February or, as a last resort, canceled.”

Adam Scott won last year’s Australian PGA at Royal Pines on the Gold Coast, where it had been played for seven years.

Scott, the 2013 Masters winner at Augusta, begins play Thursday at the delayed U.S. Open in a group with Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose.

Golf, the official sport of social distance, had its best summer in decades

WP, Rick Maese, September 16, 2020

Back in those foggy early days of the pandemic, as nearly every part of American life stopped on a dime, golf course superintendents pulled out their flag sticks, parked their carts and closed their pro shops. Golf is a discretionary expense for most, and as the novel coronavirus threatened both lives and livelihoods, no one in the industry knew when it would be safe for golfers to come back to the course or who would be returning when it was safe.

“We’re talking about an $85 billion industry that basically shut its doors down,” said Suzy Whaley, president of PGA of America, which represents more than 29,000 golf professionals in the United States and runs the PGA Championship and Ryder Cup events. “We immediately knew we had to come up with some solutions for our members.”

Banding together, the industry lobbied lawmakers, worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop revised rules and guidelines and then worked to bring the nation’s sprawling network of 14,500 golf courses back into play.

Now, after surviving the spring, the golf industry is thriving, coming off a stretch of bustling activity with little precedent.

Golfers played 10 million more rounds in July than they did a year ago, a 20 percent increase. It’s the largest bump recorded since Golf Datatech, the sport’s leading market research company, started tracking the monthly numbers 20 years ago. Play was up 14 percent year over year in June and 6 percent in May.

Though analysts say some 20 million rounds were lost during March, April and May, the booming summer has more than made up for that deficit and rounds are up 3 percent from last year. The August numbers haven’t been tallied.

Equipment sales are booming, too. They reached $388.6 million in July, the highest single month that Golf Datatech has recorded since it began tracking retail sales in 1997.

It’s quite a turnaround for the entire industry — the game’s busiest stretch following some of the slowest months that golf has seen. And, weather-depending, the stubborn pandemic may only help golf’s boom last deeper into fall. Those around the game say golf is particularly well-suited for pandemic life, offering players space, exercise and a much-needed distraction.

“I think it’s not only physical but a great mental release to go out and spend four hours walking the course,” said Greg McLaughlin, chief executive of the World Golf Foundation. It surely helps that the economy has begun to recover for the sport’s most reliable demographic: white men.

In mid-March, most of golf’s most influential organizations — including the World Golf Foundation, the PGA Tour, PGA of America, the USGA and LPGA Tour — teamed up to form Back2Golf. Pooling their resources, they reached out to governors of all 50 states to keep courses open, pleading the sport’s case as a pandemic-perfect outlet.

Rules and guidelines varied from state to state, even from county to county in some places, and were constantly changing. While government restrictions halted play in most places, many operators had to argue to keep maintenance workers and groundskeepers on hand to groom and maintain the courses.

“It was unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” said Kris Strauss, a senior vice president at Troon, which operates golf courses in more than 30 countries, including more than 40 U.S. states. “I don’t think we envisioned a worst-case scenario because we didn’t know the depths this could really go into.”

The We Are Golf organization then worked with the CDC to establish recommendations for a safe return to play, a phased-in approach that limited contact and modified some of the game’s basic practices, including barring rakes in and around bunkers, leaving flag sticks in the holes and limiting carts to one person unless players are riding with immediate family members or the cart is outfitted with a plastic partition.

The sport started stirring to life. Many courses started booking tee times in May, and in June the PGA Tour was the first major U.S. sport other than UFC to return to play. The industry almost immediately noticed there was a pent-up need.

Perhaps most encouraging for industry analysts are all the new players who have either discovered the game or returned after a long layoff. The National Golf Foundation estimates the number of junior golfers (ages 6-17) could increase by 20 percent, or 500,000 golfers, by year’s end. The number of new or returning players was up 20 percent in the first half of 2020.

“Sales of box sets — the junior sets and beginner sets — are terrific,” said Tom Stine, a partner with Golf Datatech. “They’re as good or better than they’ve ever been.”

Sales of balls, irons, wedges and gloves all set all-time monthly sales records in July. Because more people are walking, demand for shoes, pull-carts and lightweight bags have also never been higher.

While most numbers are up across the board, there are still corners of the golf world that are struggling. Strauss said many country clubs have seen strong membership numbers this summer, and courses that cater to a localized customer base are doing well. But resort properties and those that rely on tourists who travel great distances to play aren’t necessarily seeing an uptick in business, especially in places such as Hawaii that require a 14-day quarantine for visitors.

McLaughlin, who is also the president of First Tee, the youth development organization, said many young people are playing with family, but organized youth activities are down by 25 to 50 percent. The challenge will be making sure new players stick around the game, even after schools, gyms and other youth sports begin opening up their offerings.

“We’ve always done a really nice job of bringing people into the game. Unfortunately, in the past we’ve not been able to necessarily retain them,” said Zack Veasey, senior vice president of Global Value Commerce, the giant online retailer for golf gear. “I think that’s going to be the challenge for us: How do we pivot and make sure they become long-term participants?”

Around 98 percent of the courses are now open across the country. According to the National Golf Foundation, even with the dismal March and April numbers, the industry is anticipating that by year’s end, the number of rounds played could be 2 to 6 percent higher than last year’s 441 million.

“People are getting out for a variety of reasons,” Whaley said. “I think what you’d find is that many are less worried about the outcome. They’re less worried about their score. They’re enjoying being together, having some fun and just getting outside. I think it’s really helped people realize that golf is really fun, even if you don’t have your best day.”

Mimi McCrudden, 7, of University Park, golfs at the University of Maryland Golf Course. Junior golf is booming during the pandemic, industry analysts say.

Poll: US global image survives spying concerns

By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, July 15, 2014

WASHINGTON(AP)— Widespread global opposition to U.S. electronic surveillance since the revelations of National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has not badly harmed the overall image of the United States, and it remains far more popular around the world than rising power China, according to a poll released Monday.

A survey conducted by Pew Research Center among nearly 50,000 respondents in 44 countries also found that despite low ratings at home, President Barack Obama is still largely popular internationally. A median 56 percent across those nations said they have confidence for Obama to do the right thing in world affairs — little changed from last year.

The biggest declines in his ratings since last year were found in two nations where the U.S. was reported to have listened to the private phone conversations of national leaders: Germany and Brazil. Confidence in Obama dropped by 17 percentage points in both.

Overall, a median of 65 percent expressed a positive opinion of the U.S., although the rating was just 30 percent in the Middle East. Among 35 countries around the world that were surveyed both in 2014 and 2013, the U.S. rating was unchanged at 62 percent. There was no direct comparison available covering all the countries covered in the survey.

America’s reputation for protecting individual liberties has, however, been damaged in the year since Snowden began sharing documents on U.S. interception of communications. Yet the U.S. still ranks far higher on that count than China and Russia, and by a narrow margin, France.

In all, majorities in 30 nations expressed a favorable opinion of the U.S. Notwithstanding declines in American popularity gauged in Germany and Greece in recent years, there’s no evidence of a rise of anti-Americanism in most of Western Europe, as happened in the middle of last decade after the invasion of Iraq.

The biggest decline in U.S. popularity in the world in the past year is in Russia, amid growing Moscow-Washington tension over Ukraine. Those with a favorable opinion of the U.S. dropped in Russia by 28 points to 23 percent.

Meanwhile, estimations of China’s global clout are rising. The numbers of respondents believing China has or will eclipse the U.S. as the world’s superpower has risen markedly since the global economic slowdown struck in 2008.

China’s growing economy is generally seen as a good thing in most of the countries surveyed, but its overall image in the U.S. and Europe is mostly negative. Among all nations surveyed, a median of 49 percent expressed a favorable opinion of China, 16 percentage points lower than the U.S.

In Asia, China doesn’t lag far behind America in the popularity stakes, but there is growing anxiety over its rising power.

In all 11 Asian nations polled, roughly half or more say they are concerned China’s territorial disputes with its neighbors will lead to a military conflict. Those worries are most intense among three nations with conflicting territorial and maritime claims with China in the South and East China Seas, including 93 percent of Filipinos, and around 85 percent in both Japan and Vietnam.

The Pew Research Center interviewed 48,643 respondents in 44 countries from March 17 through June 5, 2014. Interviews were conducted face-to-face or by telephone, depending on the country, and are representative of at least 95 percent of the adult population of each nation except for Argentina, Greece, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria and Pakistan where some difficult to reach or rural populations were excluded, and Japan, where interviews were conducted by landline telephone only. Samples in China, India and Pakistan, were disproportionately urban, and were weighted to reflect each nation’s actual urbanity distribution.

In this file photo dated Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, Brexit supporters hold British and US flags during a rally in London. The international reputation of the United States has declined further in the wake of its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to new research published Tuesday Sept. 15, 2020, from the Pew Research Center.

Survey: US’s international reputation takes a virus hit

By PAN PYLAS, September 14, 2020

LONDON(AP)— The international reputation of the United States has declined further in the wake of its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to new research Tuesday from the Pew Research Center.

In some of the 13 countries surveyed, favorable views of the U.S. have fallen to record lows. Pew started polling on the topic nearly two decades ago.

Although the international image of the U.S. has been in decline since President Donald Trump took office in 2017, Pew found it has been dented further by what is perceived to be a badly handled response to the pandemic. Pew found that a median of just 15% of respondents say the U.S. has done a good job during the crisis, in contrast to perceptions around the World Health Organization or the European Union, both of which enjoy majority approval.

Though new infections in the U.S. appear to have moderated over the past few weeks, the country has the world’s highest official virus-related death toll with around 195,000 deaths. Much of the blame internationally appears to have been laid at Trump’s door. The president has raised eyebrows around the world during the past few months with some of his comments on the virus and how it should be handled.

The international declines that Pew gauged were widespread, including among the U.S.’s traditional allies. In the U.K., for example, Pew found that just 41% of people express a favorable opinion of the U.S., the lowest recorded rate.

In France, only 31% see the U.S. positively, matching the low level recorded in 2003 when the two countries were at loggerheads over the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Germans are particularly negative in their views of the U.S., with only 26% of those polled viewing the country favorably, just above the 25% level in 2003, when Germany, like France, opposed the Iraq war.

Of the countries surveyed,only South Korea was found to have a majority of people with a favorable view of the U.S., with 59% support.

Pew also gauged opinions surrounding Trump, who is facing a tough re-election battle in November against his Democratic opponent, former vice president Joe Biden.

The president’s ratings were low across the board, particularly in Belgium where just 9% of those polled had a favorable view of Trump. The Japanese were the most positive, though even there only 25% expressed confidence in Trump.

Pew said attitudes toward Trump have consistently been much more negative than those toward his predecessor, Barack Obama, especially in Western Europe. It said that in the U.K., Spain, France and Germany, ratings for Trump are similar to those received by George W. Bush near the end of his presidency, when his reputation was dented by violence in Iraq as well as the start of the global financial crisis.

Trump was also perceived in a more negative light than other world leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel received the most support, with a median of 76% of people across the nations polled having confidence in her. French President Emmanuel Macron also received largely favorable ratings while those towards British Prime Minister Boris Johnson were more mixed. Pew also found that the ratings for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were overwhelmingly negative too, though not as negative as Trump’s.

Pew collated said it used data from nationally representative surveys of 13,273 adults from June 10 to Aug. 3, in Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK, Australia, Japan and South Korea. Due to restrictions related to the pandemic, all surveys were conducted by phone.

The Latest: India’s daily virus increase surges to record

NEW DELHI — India has confirmed another record jump in coronavirus cases, logging 97,894 cases in the past 24 hours.

The Health Ministry said Thursday that the new cases raised the nation’s confirmed total to more than 5.1 million since the pandemic began. It said 1,132 more people died in the past 24 hours, for a total of 83,198.

At the current rate of infection, India is expected within weeks to surpass the 6.6 million reported cases in the United States, currently the country with the most reported infections.

Nationwide, India is testing more than 1 million samples per day.

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HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK

— Trump disputes health officials, sees mass vaccinations soon

— New companies face tough task overcoming pandemic, recession

— Hawaii to allow travelers to skip quarantine with virus test

— UK to ration COVID-19 testing amid testing failures

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FollowAP’s pandemic coverage athttp://apnews.com/VirusOutbreakandhttps://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. humanitarian chief says reports from inside Syria point to “a much broader spread” of COVID-19 cases than the 3,628 confirmed cases conveys.

Mark Lowco*ck told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that the extent of the outbreak won’t be known until laboratory testing is increased across the country.

He said: “We do know that community transmission is widespread, as almost 90% of newly confirmed cases cannot be traced to a known source.”

He added: “Infection rates among health workers have also been rising.”

Lowco*ck said even before the pandemic, Syria had a shortage of health workers, and supply shortages and temporary shutdowns have added “even more pressure to the decimated health system.”

He said on Aug. 27 the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported among residents at two camps for the displaced in the northeast, al-Hol and Areesha. He said five health care workers at a field hospital in al-Hol had tested positive in the previous weeks.

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HONOLULU — Hawaii’s governor says that starting Oct. 15, travelers arriving from out of state may bypass a 14-day quarantine requirement if they test negative for the coronavirus.

Gov. David Ige said Wednesday that travelers will have to take the test within 72 hours before their flight arrives in the islands. Ige says drug store operator CVS and healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente will conduct the tests.

The state has previously delayed the start of the pre-travel testing program twice as COVID-19 cases spiked on the U.S. mainland and in Hawaii.

Leaders hope pre-travel testing will encourage tourists to return while keeping residents safe. Tourism traffic to the state has plunged more than 90% during the pandemic, closing hundreds of hotels and putting many people out of work.

In this June 5, 2020, file photo, a surfer walks on a sparsely populated Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. Hawaii's governor says that starting Oct. 15, travelers arriving from out of state may bypass a 14-day quarantine requirement if they test negative for COVID-19.

The Latest: Hawaii again sets plan for pre-testing tourists

HONOLULU — Hawaii’s governor says that starting Oct. 15, travelers arriving from out of state may bypass a 14-day quarantine requirement if they test negative for the coronavirus.

The state has previously delayed the start of the pre-travel testing program twice as COVID-19 cases spiked on the U.S. mainland and in Hawaii.

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HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK

— CDC director: Scientific integrity unchanged despite White House pressure

— Eli Lilly says antibody study gives hint of help for COVID-19 patients

— UK to ration COVID-19 testing amid testing failures

— The U.S. government released a sweeping plan to make vaccines for the coronavirus available for free to all Americans, assuming a safe and effective shot is developed.

— South Africa’s minister of health says about 12 million people have “probably” been infected with the coronavirus. That’s more than 20% of South Africa’s population of 58 million.

— The Big Ten Conference will give fall football a shot after all. It reversed a decision to push the season to spring after push back from lawmakers, coaches and parents and President Trump.

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FollowAP’s pandemic coverage athttp://apnews.com/VirusOutbreakandhttps://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

MEXICO CITY — A Mexico City official says the capital had 20,535 “excess deaths” attributable to COVID-19 between April and August. That is almost double the official death toll of 11,318 reported for the pandemic in Mexico City.

The head of the city’s Digital Innovation Agency says there were 30,462 “excess deaths” in the city between April 1 and the end of August, about two-thirds of which were determined to be due to coronavirus. David Merino wrote in his Twitter account that 92% of those deaths were in hospitals and 7% at private residences.

Like all of Mexico, the city of almost 9 million inhabitants has had an extremely low testing rate and officials acknowledge that the number of test-confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths probably undercounts the real figures.

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is disagreeing with the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the potential availability of a coronavirus vaccine to the general public.

Trump promised Wednesday that a vaccine will be available much sooner than was projected in congressional testimony earlier in the day by Dr. Robert Redfield.

Trump says Redfield “made a mistake” when he told lawmakers that any vaccine available in November or December would be in “very limited supply,” and reserved for first responders and people most vulnerable to COVID-19. Redfield estimated the shot wouldn’t be broadly available until the spring or summer of 2021.

Trump is predicting a vaccine will be approved before voters go to the polls Nov. 3.

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he disagrees with the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention telling lawmakers that wearing a mask is guaranteed to protect people more from the novel coronavirus than a vaccine.

Trump said at a White House news conference that a mask is “not more effective by any means than a vaccine, and I called him about that.”

Trump’s comments were the second time he questioned the testimony of the CDC’s Robert Redfield on Wednesday. Earlier, he said Redfield was wrong in his estimation of how fast a potential vaccine will be available to the general public.

Trump says that “I hope the vaccine is going to be a lot more beneficial than the mask.” He also says that “the mask perhaps helps.”

Trump says he still has confidence in Redfield.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania’s top lawyer is asking a federal judge to keep in place Gov. Tom Wolf’s limits on crowd size, arguing that allowing large groups to congregate “will result in people’s deaths” from the coronavirus.

The office of Attorney General Josh Shapiro urged U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV on Wednesday to delay enforcement of his ruling that many of the governor’s pandemic shutdown orders are unconstitutional.

Stickman has said the state’s size limits for indoor and outdoor gatherings violate citizens’ constitutional right to assemble. The state has been enforcing a gathering limit of 25 people for indoor events and 250 for those held outside.

Shapiro’s office says Stickman’s ruling “does not consider the manner in which COVID-19 is spread or the rationale for adopting the congregate limits.” Its points out that other federal judges and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court have upheld Wolf’s pandemic shutdown orders.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio has enacted a law that bars local or state officials from closing churches or other houses of worship and that bans the changing of election dates.

The legislation signed Wednesday by Gov. Mike DeWine was pushed through by Republican lawmakers in reaction to such orders as part of coronavirus containment measures. DeWine had refrained from shutting down religious institutions during the pandemic, but some other governors have restricted religious gatherings.

The new law also takes aim at DeWine’s eleventh hour decision in March to postpone the state’s in-person primary because of concerns about the coronavirus. The statute forbids moving elections other than from the “time, place and manner” spelled out in state law.

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ANNAPOLIS, Md. — It will likely be at least six to eight months longer before a coronavirus vaccine can be distributed in a best-case scenario, leading Maryland health officials and lawmakers said as they make plans for the state.

Senate President Bill Ferguson said he spoke on Tuesday with one of the principal investigators at Johns Hopkins University who is working on a vaccine now in its third phase. While there has been remarkable progress, Ferguson said Wednesday that the logistics that go into distributing a vaccine are “enormous and herculean.”

“I think it’s really important that we keep that in mind moving forward as we make decisions about the future of Maryland — that even with an amazing light-speed approval, it is still six to eight months from that point until we’ll start to see the impact on herd immunity overall, so there is time to go in this ballgame,” Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, said during a meeting of a legislative panel on the coronavirus.

Robert Neall, Maryland’s health secretary, emphasized that people need to be prepared to use available tools like masks and handwashing well into next year.

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BERLIN — Germany has declared three European capitals and several regions “risk areas” for coronavirus.

The Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that the Austrian capital Vienna, Budapest in Hungary and the Dutch region that includes Amsterdam were added to the risk list due to high numbers of COVID-19 infections there.

Also listed were several regions in France, Romania, Croatia, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

Travelers arriving in Germany from those locations have to go into mandatory quarantine and take a coronavirus test.

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ISTANBUL — Turkey’s health minister says Phase 3 trials for China’s Sinovac Biotech’s two-step vaccine have begun in Turkey with three Turkish health workers.

Fahrettin Koca said Wednesday the trial would expand to 1,200 volunteers and then to 10,000. He said trials for a Pfizer vaccine were also beginning and others were pending, adding that he hoped widespread vaccinations would start towards the end of 2020.

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UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations chief says the COVID-19 pandemic remains “out of control,” with the world approaching “the grimmest of milestones: 1 million lives lost to the virus.”

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a news conference Wednesday that the coronavirus “is the number one global security threat in our world today,” posing a crisis that is “unlike any in our lifetimes.”

He said that’s why he called for a global cease-fire on March 23 to tackle the pandemic.

And in his speech to world leaders at next Tuesday’s mainly virtual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, Guterres said he will make “a strong appeal to the international community to mobilize all efforts for the global cease-fire to become a reality by the end of the year.”

The secretary-general urged the international community to come together to defeat the virus, stressing that a vaccine alone can’t solve the crisis.

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JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s president says the country will reopen for international travel as of Oct. 1 after confirmed coronavirus cases have dropped dramatically in recent weeks.

President Cyril Ramaphosa says visitors may not be allowed from countries deemed at high risk and a list of countries will be published in the coming days.

Visitors will be required to show negative test results for the virus no older than 72 hours before departure. Those who didn’t test before departure will be required to stay in quarantine at their own cost.

International flights will be allowed only at the country’s three main airports in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.

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WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday was asked whether the White House was now counting on herd immunity to deal with the virus.

President Donald Trump said during an ABC News town hall on Tuesday that eventually there will be herd immunity to the virus, but that with a vaccine, the virus will go away “very quickly.”

For the United States to reach herd immunity against the coronavirus, most experts say, the nation would likely need to vaccinate roughly 70% of Americans.

“Herd immunity has never been a strategy here at the White House,” McEnany said. “The president last night was noting ... (that) over a period of time a country, a society, can reach herd immunity. It’s a fact. It was not a strategy ever presented here at the White House.”

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LONDON — The U.K. has recorded nearly 4,000 new coronavirus cases for the first time since May amid mounting concerns the country is on the verge of a second wave.

Government figures show new cases rising to 3,991, up markedly from Tuesday’s figure of 3,105. Though more testing is picking up more cases, it’s clear the virus is spreading. The latest daily increase is more than two times the level reported a few weeks back.

Officials recently banned social gatherings in England of more than six people both indoors and outdoors. Though many of the recent cases involve younger people, there are concerns more vulnerable people may become infected.

The government reported Wednesday another 20 people died within 28 days after testing positive for COVID-19, the new U.K. cutoff for official deaths instituted in the last few weeks.

That takes the death toll to 41,684, Europe’s highest and fifth highest in the world. On Aug. 20, the reported death toll in the U.K. was 41,483.

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BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary’s prime minister set a maximum price for coronavirus tests, extended mandatory use of face masks and ordered temperature checks at school for all students and teachers starting Oct. 1.

Viktor Orban says in a video posted on Facebook that tests cannot cost more than 19,500 forints ($64.50). Wearing masks, already obligatory on public transportation and stores, will be extended to theaters, cinemas, health care and social institutions, among others, and nightclubs must close at 11 p.m.

Orban says the health care system was prepared to deal with the second wave of the pandemic, with a plan to increase the availability of hospital beds and deploy doctors and nurses where needed.

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BERLIN — German public broadcasterARDreports a far-right lawmaker in the national Parliament has tested positive for the coronavirus.

ARDquoted the Alternative for Germany party confirming Wednesday that Norbert Kleinwaechter was tested positive for COVID-19 and informed his caucus Tuesday. Six other lawmakers for the party and several parliamentary staff he’d been in contact with were sent home to isolate.

Some Alternative for Germany lawmakers took part in protests against pandemic restrictions in recent months.

Germany’s disease control center says the country recorded 1,901 new infections in the past day, taking the total to nearly 264,000. Germany has confirmed 9,368 COVID-related deaths since the start of the outbreak.

Government officials dressed as a shrouded ghosts, traditionally known as a 'pocong', to represent the victims of COVID-19, take part in a coronavirus awareness campaign at a market in Tangerang, Indonesia, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020. Writings on the posters read "My mask protects you, your mask protects me" and "Wear mask, wash your hands, keep your distance".

Relatives and health workers pay their respects as the body of a three-month-old COVID-19 victim is buried in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020. India's total of coronavirus infections passed 5 million Wednesday, still soaring and testing the feeble health care system in tens of thousands of impoverished towns and villages.

A view of sign directing people to a walk-in coronavirus testing centre on Marlborough Road in Southampton, England, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020. The British government plans to ration coronavirus testing, giving priority to health workers and care home staff after widespread reports that people throughout the country were unable to schedule tests. Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday will face questions about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the House of Commons and before a key committee amid the outcry over the shortage of testing.

Workers prepare ahead of opening at a Coronavirus testing centre in Southwark, south London, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020.

A woman with face mask walks down stairs with chocolate advertising in the main train station after arriving in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020.

Two woman wearing face masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus walk in the southern neighbourhood of Vallecas in Madrid, Spain, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020. The Spanish capital will introduce selective lockdowns in urban areas where the coronavirus is spreading faster, regional health authorities announced on Tuesday. The measures in Madrid will most likely affect southern, working-class neighbourhoods where virus contagion rates have been steadily soaring since August.

A man wearing a face mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus buys sweets in downtown Madrid, Spain, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020.

A man wearing a face mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus stands in downtown Madrid, Spain, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020.

Kindergarten students are led into the building on the first day of in-person classes at Lee Elementary School on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020 in Lee, Mass.

An army mascot salutes during the annual Independence Day military parade in Mexico City's main square of the capital, the Zócalo, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020. Mexico celebrates the anniversary of its independence uprising of 1810.

Spectators take position near the perimeter to where the annual Independence Day military parade will pass on Mexico City’s Juarez Avenue, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020.

Men construct a barricade blocking off their street to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Yangon, Myanmar, September 12, 2020.

Myanmar reports highest COVID-19 daily toll, with 307 new cases

YANGON(Reuters)- Myanmar reported 307 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, its highest daily toll since the start of the pandemic in March, as the country battles a second wave of infections.

The health ministry did not say immediately where the new cases were found. Most recent infections have been in the commercial city Yangon and in Sittwe, capital of conflict-torn Rakhine state.

Myanmar has so far reported a total 3,502 COVID-19 cases and 35 deaths. Infections have quadrupled over the last month after the coronavirus resurfaced in the western state of Rakhine, following weeks without a confirmed domestic case.

Domestic airlines announced that services have been suspended until the end of September and health authorities widened a stay-at-home order to nearly half of the townships in greater Yangon, the biggest city.

A booth displaying a coronavirus vaccine candidate from Sinovac Biotech Ltd is seen at the 2020 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS), following the COVID-19 outbreak, in Beijing, China September 5, 2020.

In coronavirus vaccine race, China inoculates thousands before trials are completed

By David Stanway, Miyoung Kim

SHANGHAI/SINGAPORE(Reuters)- China is inoculating tens of thousands of its citizens with experimental coronavirus vaccines and attracting international interest in their development, despite expert concerns over the safety of drugs that have not completed standard testing.

China launched a vaccine emergency use programme in July, offering three experimental shots developed by a unit of state pharmaceutical giant China National Pharmaceutical Group(Sinopharm)and U.S.-listed Sinovac BiotechSVA.O. A fourth COVID-19 vaccine being developed by CanSino Biologics6185.HKwas approved for use by the Chinese military in June.

Aiming to protect essential workers and reduce the likelihood of a resurgence, the vaccines are also grabbing attention in the global scramble by governments to secure supplies, potentially helping reframe China’s perceived role in the pandemic.

Beijing has not released official data on the uptake in domestic targeted groups, which include medical, transport and food market workers.

But China National Biotec Group (CNBG), the Sinopharm unit developing two of the emergency use vaccines, and Sinovac have confirmed that at least tens of thousands of people have been inoculated. Additionally, CNBG said it had given hundreds of thousands of doses; one of its vaccines requires an individual receive two or three shots to be inoculated.

Beijing has engaged a public, top-down approach to endorse the experimental vaccines and foster community support. Among those lining up for shots early on were the chief executives of Sinovac and Sinopharm and the military’s research chief.

The chief biosafety expert at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed this week that she too had been injected in April as she announced the potential that at least some of the vaccines would be ready for public use as early as November.

“So far, among the people who who were vaccinated, no one has been sick with the disease,” Guizhen Wu said on state TV. “So far, (the vaccination scheme) works very well. No side effect occurred.”

Wu’s comments were broadly in line with comments by CNBG last week that none of tens of thousands of people who travelled to high-risk countries and regions after being vaccinated had been infected, and there was “no case of obvious adverse reaction”.

SAFETY CONCERNS

China’s approach runs counter to that of many Western countries, where experts have warned against authorizing the emergency use of vaccines that have not completed testing, citing a lack of understanding about longer-term efficacy and potential side effects.

Anna Durbin, a vaccine researcher at Johns Hopkins University, described China’s emergency use programme as “very problematic,” saying it was impossible to judge efficacy without a clinical trial standard control group.

“You’re vaccinating people and you don’t know if it’s going to protect them,” Durbin toldReuters, adding recipients of the experimental vaccines could eschew other protective measures.

Vaccine safety came into sharp focus last week when AstraZeneca PlcAZN.Lpaused late-stage clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine, one of the most advanced in development.

The company resumed British trials over the weekend after receiving the green light from safety watchdogs, and, along with other leading Western vaccine makers has pledged to uphold scientific study standards and reject any political pressure to rush the process.

Russia is one of the few other countries to authorise the use of an experimental vaccine, making its own “Sputnik V” vaccine mandatory for certain groups including teachers. India is considering emergency authorization for a vaccine, particularly for the elderly and people in high-risk workplaces.

FOREIGN BUYERS

The UAE authorized the emergency use of a Sinopharm vaccine this week, the first international emergency clearance for one of China’s vaccines, just six weeks after human trials began in the Gulf Arab state. UAE officials reported mild and expected side effects, but no severe side effects, during those trials.

CanSino has been approached by several countries, a source familiar with the discussions toldReuters, adding the military’s approval helped attract foreign interest. The person declined to name the countries engaged in talks.

CanSino, which has trials planned in Pakistan and Russia for the vaccine developed with China’s military research unit, did not respond to a request for comment.

Zhang Yuntao, CNBG vice president toldReutershis company has received interest from foreign countries to buy about 500 million doses of its experimental vaccine.

“China clearly wants to reorient that narrative in a way that it is viewed as a solution rather than a cause of the pandemic,” Yanzhong Huang, Senior Fellow for Global Health, Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S.-based think tank.

“That narrative, ironically, may become more convincing when Trump’s America First approach denies many countries opportunities to access the U.S.-made vaccines.”

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday vowed to prioritise China and Russia in his country’s global shopping for a vaccine, saying his government had already had talks with both. He said China was unlike other countries seeking a “reservation fee” or advance payment.

“The one good thing about China is you do not have to beg, you do not have to plead,” Duterte said. “One thing wrong about the western countries; it’s all profit, profit, profit.”

A Qantas plane flies over the city centre skyline amidst the easing of the restrictions implemented to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Sydney, Australia June 29, 2020.

Travellers snap up Asian airlines' scenic 'flights to nowhere'

By Jamie Freed, Chen Lin

SYDNEY/SINGAPORE(Reuters)- Qantas Airways Ltd QAN.AX said a seven-hour scenic flight over Australia's Outback and Great Barrier Reef had sold out in 10 minutes, as it joined a growing trend in Asia offering "flights to nowhere" that take off and land at the same airport.

Tough border restrictions to keep the coronavirus under control have led to a 97.5% plunge in international travel in the region, according to the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines.

Many frequent flyers miss getting on planes and airlines including Taiwan's EVA Airways Corp2618.TWand Japan's ANA Holdings Inc9202.T, desperate for revenue and to keep their pilots' licences current, have offered special sightseeing flights.

The Qantas flight, in a Boeing Co BA.N 787 typically used for long-haul international journeys, will fly at low levels over Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef and Sydney Harbour before landing back in Sydney.

Tickets cost between A$787 and A$3,787($575 and $2,765)depending on the seating class and the 134 available seats were quickly snapped up, a Qantas spokeswoman said on Thursday.

“It’s probably the fastest selling flight in Qantas history,” she said. “People clearly miss travel and the experience of flying. If the demand is there, we’ll definitely look at doing more of these scenic flights while we all wait for borders to open.”

Taiwan's EVA used one of its iconic Hello Kitty livery planes for a special father's day flight last month, while ANA used an Airbus SE AIR.PA A380 that usually flies to Honolulu for a 90-minute flight with a Hawaiian experience on board.

Tickets costing $6,888 Taiwan dollars ($236) for a Tigerair Taiwan flight from Taipei that will circle over South Korea’s Jeju Island reportedly sold out in four minutes. The price includes a one-year voucher for round-trip tickets from Taiwan to Korea, which can be used after COVID-19 travel bans are lifted.

Chen Shu Tze, 44, an engineer from Taipei, said she signed up for the flight because the voucher made it a good deal andshe missed being able to travel - especially to South Korea, a favourite destination.

“The pandemic has a devasting impact on the tourism and airline industry, so I want to help boost the economy, and I miss flying,” she toldReuters.

All of the countries where the flights are on offer have relatively low numbers of COVID-19 cases by global standards.

Among other airline stunts, Thai Airways International PCLTHAI.BKthis month opened a pop-up restaurant on the ground, offering in-flight meals served from airline seats to would-be travellers.

CLIMATE CONCERNS

Singapore Airlines LtdSIAL.SIis also eyeing scenic flights from next month, the country'sStraits Timesnewspaper reported on Sunday, an idea that received widespread criticism from environmentalists and online commenters.

“First, it encourages carbon-intensive travel for no good reason and second, it is merely a stop-gap measure that distracts from the policy and value shifts necessary to mitigate the climate crisis,” said awareness group SG Climate Rally.

Singapore Airlines said it is considering several initiatives but no final decision has been made on whether to offer sightseeing flights.

Qantas said it would pay to offset the carbon emissions on its scenic flight from Sydney, though online critics noted that would not actually reduce emissions.

The concept of scenic flights is not new. Antarctica Flights has chartered Qantas jets for scenic flights over Antarctica for 26 years. An Air New Zealand LtdAIR.NZsightseeing flight over Antarctica in 1979 crashed into Mount Erebus, killing all 257 people on board.

($1 = 1.3695 Australian dollars = 29.1490 Taiwan dollars)

Oman is expected to send representative to White House signing ceremony, official says

WASHINGTON(Reuters)- Oman is expected to send a representative to Tuesday’s White House ceremony where Israel will sign normalization deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, a senior administration official said.

The official said Oman’s ambassador to the United States was expected to attend. The development was likely to fuel speculation that Oman could be the next Gulf state to sign a normalization deal with Israel.

Indian soldiers disembark from a military transport plane at a forward airbase in Leh, in the Ladakh region, September 15, 2020.

India pushes tonnes of supplies to disputed China border ahead of winter

By Devjyot Ghoshal

LEH, India(Reuters)- From deploying mules to large transport aircraft, India’s military has activated its entire logistics network to transport supplies to thousands of troops for a harsh winter along a bitterly disputed Himalayan border with China.

In recent months, one of India’s biggest military logistics exercises in years has brought vast quantities of ammunition, equipment, fuel, winter supplies and food into Ladakh, a region bordering Tibet that India administers as a union territory, officials said.

The move was triggered by a border stand-off with China in the snow deserts of Ladakh that began in May and escalated in June into hand-to-hand combat. Twenty Indian soldiers were killed while China suffered an undisclosed number of casualties.

Both countries are negotiating to resolve the confrontation, but neither side has backed down. The Indian military is now set to keep troops deployed along the treacherous, high-altitude border through the winter.

Eastern Ladakh, where the flare-up occurred, is typically manned by 20,000-30,000 soldiers. But the deployment has more than doubled with the tensions, a military official said, declining to provide exact numbers.

“We have mirrored the increase in Chinese troops,” the official said, adding the Indian military was well-prepared but did not want further escalation or a prolonged conflict.

Temperatures in Ladakh can fall well below freezing, and troops are often deployed at altitudes of over 15,000 feet, where oxygen is scarce, officials said.

Since snow blocks mountain passes into Ladakh at least four months every winter, Indian military planners have already moved more than 150,000 tonnes of materials into the region.

“All the supplies that we need have already been pushed to wherever they are required,” said Major General Arvind Kapoor, chief of staff of the Indian army’s 14 Corps.

FERRYING TO THE FRONTLINE

On Tuesday morning, a succession of the Indian air force’s large transport aircraft landed at a forward base in Ladakh, carrying men and materials, as fighter jets roared overhead.

Soldiers with backpacks streamed out and were checked for COVID-19 symptoms at a transit facility, where they awaited further transport.

The materials are stored across a network of logistics hubs.

At a fuel, oil and lubricant depot near Leh, Ladakh’s main city, a hillside was covered with clusters of green drums.

At storage facilities at a nearby supply depot, boxes and sacks of ration - including pistachios, instant noodles and Indian curries - stood in tall piles. At another base near Leh, tents, heaters, winter clothing and high-altitude equipment lay stacked.

From these depots, the materials are pushed to logistics nodes by trucks, helicopters and, in some particularly difficult parts, mules, officials said.

“In a place like Ladakh, operations logistics is of huge importance,” said Kapoor. “In the last 20 years, we have mastered it.”

India says it has doubled budget for roads and bridges on China border

By Sanjeev Miglani

NEW DELHI(Reuters)- India has doubled the budget for vital roads and bridges along the undemarcated border with China in recent years in response to Beijing’s rapid infrastructure development on its side, the Indian defense minister said on Tuesday.

Troops of the two countries are locked in their most serious face-offs for years along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) or informal border in the western Himalayas, raising fears of a broader conflict.

One of the reasons for the tensions has been India’s recent construction of roads and airfields near the border in the Ladakh region bordering Tibet, the Chinese side has said.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told parliament that China had been building up its infrastructure in the remote mountains for decades and the government was trying to close the gap.

“Our government too has stepped up the budget for border infrastructure development to about double the previous levels. As a result, more roads and bridges have been completed in the border areas,” he said. He provided no figure.

Military officials say the development of roads and airfields on both sides of the border has also helped troops mobilize quickly in large numbers and in close proximity at some points in the Ladakh area.

Singh said Indian and Chinese troops have had face-offs on the unsettled border in the past, but the scale of deployment of troops and the number of disputed areas was much more than the past.

“As of now, the Chinese side has mobilized a large number of troops and armaments along the LAC as well as in the depth areas,” he said, listing Gogra, Kongka La and the north and south banks of the Pangong lake as “friction points.”

“In response to China’s actions, our armed forces have also made appropriate counter deployments in these areas to ensure that India’s security interests are fully protected,” he said to thumping of desks in parliament.

Chinese border city steps up coronavirus tests after Myanmar cases

BEIJING(Reuters)- A Chinese border city launched coronavirus tests for tens of thousands of residents on Tuesday, following two imported infections from neighboring Myanmar, barring some people from leaving homes, and ordering vehicles off the streets.

The key transit point of Ruili in southwestern Yunnan province will run tests on its 200,000 residents following Sunday’s reports of the imported cases, although no local transmission of the virus has been reported.

Yunnan’s rugged 4,000-km(2,485-mile)border with Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam makes it tough for authorities to step up surveillance and cut illegal immigration as thousands pour into China, seen as a safe haven in the global pandemic.

“All residents in downtown areas shall be quarantined at home, and are not to enter or leave without special reasons,” the Ruili city government said in a statement on Tuesday.

All businesses were to be shut, except for supermarkets, pharmacies and food markets, it added. It also banned vehicles from the streets for the duration of testing, unless delivering essential items.

Chinese embassy officials in Myanmar have held talks via teleconference with the country’s authorities to beef up joint efforts for disease control and prevention, the embassy said on its website.

Chinese officials have said areas on the Myanmar border should put the fight against the disease on a wartime footing.

China says military drills near Taiwan were a 'necessary action'

BEIJING(Reuters)- Chinese military drills off Taiwan’s southwest coast last week were a “necessary action” to protect China’s sovereignty, Beijing said on Wednesday, after Taiwan complained the large-scale air and naval exercises were a serious provocation.

China, which claims democratic Taiwan as its own, has stepped up military activities near the island, in what Taiwan views as intimidation to force it to accept Chinese rule.

Taiwan’s denounced the two days of exercises last week, which it said took place in Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, between mainland Taiwan and the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands. Taiwan says China sent advanced Su-30 and J-10 fighters to participate.

Offering China’s first public explanation for the exercises, Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said Taiwan was a “sacred” and inseparable part of China.

“The relevant combat training activities by the People’s Liberation Army were a necessary action aimed at the current security situation in the Taiwan Strait and to safeguard national sovereignty,” Ma told a news conference.

In an apparent reference to the United States, Taiwan’s main arms supplier and strongest international supporter, Ma said the drills were also aimed at “the interference of foreign forces” and Taiwan independence activities, not Taiwan’s people.

Taiwan’s government was allowing anti-China, Western forces to “play the Taiwan card” and become a pawn in stopping China’s development, stirring up enmity between the two sides of the strait and seeking Taiwan’s independence, Ma said.

“They continue to provoke and are threat-makers and trouble-makers,” he said.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who has warned of the risk of accidental conflict because of the increasing military activities, says the island is already an independent country called the Republic of China, Taiwan’s formal name.

The Pentagon also expressed concern about China’s drills last week. The United States has been carrying out its own military activity near Taiwan, including regular warship sailings through the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwanese domestically built Indigenous Defense Fighters (IDF) take part in the live-fire, anti-landing Han Kuang military exercise, which simulates an enemy invasion, in Taichung, Taiwan July 16, 2020.

Taiwan says Chinese anti-submarine aircraft off its coast

TAIPEI(Reuters)- Two Chinese anti-submarine aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone on Wednesday and were warned to leave by Taiwan’s air force, the island’s defence ministry said on Thursday, the day a senior U.S. official is due to arrive.

Taiwan has complained repeatedly about stepped up Chinese military activity in the air and waters near it, in what Taipei sees as part of Beijing’s efforts to get them to accept Chinese sovereignty.

Last week, Taiwan said China carried out two days of mass drills off its southwest coast, between mainland Taiwan and the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands, which China called a “necessary action” to protect their sovereignty.

Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said the two Chinese anti-submarine aircraft flew around the same air space to its southwest, and were given verbal warnings over radio to leave.

Taiwan’s air force also monitored the two Chinese aircraft, it added in a brief statement.

The announcement comes the same day U.S. Undersecretary for Economic Affairs Keith Krach is due to arrive in Taiwan, in a trip likely to further rile Beijing which regularly denounces United States support for the democratic island.

When U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar visited Taiwan last month, the highest-level U.S. official to come in four decades, Chinese air force jets briefly crossed the mid-line of the Taiwan Strait and were tracked by Taiwanese missiles.

Mongolians protest visit of China diplomat as language dispute simmers

ULAANBAATAR(Reuters)- Demonstrators rallied in Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar on Tuesday to protest against a visit by the Chinese government’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, amid accusations that Beijing is suppressing native language and culture in ethnic Mongolian regions of China.

About 100 mostly peaceful protesters gathered on Sukhbaatar Square in front of Mongolia’s Government Palace and chanted “let’s protect our native language” and “Wang Yi go away”.

They were responding to a policy forcing elementary and secondary schools in China’s Inner Mongolia region to adhere to a national curriculum in Chinese language, politics and history.

China said the policy was designed to promote national unity and insisted there would still be room for Mongolian language teaching in other subjects and grades.

However, the policy has led to school boycotts and accusations by human rights groups that Beijing is trying to destroy Mongolian culture.

On Monday, the U.S.-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center accused Chinese authorities of turning the region into a “police state”.

It said 4,000-5,000 people had been put into police custody during three weeks of protests, while at least nine had lost their lives.

The Mongolian government has yet to comment on the issue.

“Our leaders need to speak up,” one protester, a shaman named Khaliun Sukhbaatar, told Reuters. “If our government keeps silent in the name of international relations and economic stability, one by one Mongolians are being pressed out and Mongolia will cease to exist.”

Mongolia’s economy is heavily dependent on China, and Beijing is expected to provide the country a 700 million yuan($103.15 million)grant during Wang’s two-day visit.

In an interview with Ulaanbaatar-based Daily National Newspaper on Monday, China’s ambassador to Mongolia Chai Wenrui said “false rumors” about the policy were provoking conflict.

He also said China’s demand for Mongolian coal - its biggest export earner - was shrinking. Though shipments have continued, they were piling up because there was no market for them.

“Frankly, we are working in your interests,” he was quoted as saying.

U.S. to announce on Wednesday charges in computer intrusion campaigns related to China

WASHINGTON(Reuters)- The U.S. Justice Department is poised to announce “charges and arrests related to a computer intrusion campaign tied to the Chinese government,” the department said in a statement on Tuesday.

Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich and other officials will take part in a news conference at 11 a.m. EDT(1500 GMT)on Wednesday to make the announcement, the statement said.

No other details were given.

White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien said last month that Chinese government-linked hackers have been targeting U.S. election infrastructure ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election.

China has consistently denied U.S. government claims that it hacks U.S. companies, politicians or government agencies.

People walk on the grounds of the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario, Canada September 9, 2020. Picture taken September 9, 2020.

Staying home: Drop in foreign students bad omen for Canada's labor market

By Julie Gordon

OTTAWA(Reuters)- Travel restrictions and a shift to online learning has dramatically cut the number of international students expected to attend Canadian universities and colleges this fall, and the decline will ripple through Canada’s labor market.

New study permits for foreign students issued by Canada fell by 22.3% in the second quarter of 2020 compared with the same period of 2019, amid strict COVID-19 border controls that have blocked many new foreign students from entering Canada.[nL1N2GB0QN]

While fall semester enrollment is not yet finalized, Canadian schools are expecting a “significant” drop in international students, according to their advocacy groups, which will slash billions from college and university revenues.

The decline will also have a ripple effect through the private sector, said Denise Amyot, chief executive of Colleges and Institutes Canada.

“A lot of SMEs (small, medium enterprises) are worried because often those international students are enrolled into fields where they are less domestic students,” she said.

This means a potential labor shortage for some employers, with fewer students in the near-term for work placements and internships, and then a longer-term dip in new graduates entering the labor force.

Canada’s unemployment rate was near a 40-year-low before the pandemic. While some 3 million jobs were lost at the height of the lockdowns, some two-thirds have since been recouped.[nL1N2G10H7]

Many foreign students go into in-demand sectors like health services, business administration, mining and manufacturing, and information technology, along with emerging technologies, say educators.

The problem is particularly pressing in rural or remote regions of Canada, where the workforce is rapidly aging and young people tend to leave for major urban centers.

“Immigration and international students are a key part of our population growth strategy in Atlantic Canada,” said Joel Richardson, spokesman for Cooke Aquaculture, a fast-growing Canadian seafood producer with operations in 10 countries.

The company was already struggling with a labor gap before restrictions shut the border. Now it has about 100 domestic job openings, and is facing the added strain of less international students on local campuses who it typically hires after graduation for office and skilled labor roles. A worker shortage has prompted the company to also offer part-time and summer processing jobs to students.

“We have a lot of need for people with international backgrounds and multilinguistic capabilities,” said Richardson.

TICKET TO CITIZENSHIP

Studying at a Canadian university or college has long been a pathway to citizenship for skilled foreign workers and the lure has grown in recent years, in part due to the political climate south of the border under U.S. President Donald Trump.

New study permits issued to international students by Canada jumped 52.2% from 2016 to 2019.

That boom had been a windfall for Canadian universities and colleges, as foreign students pay far more than domestic ones for the same courses. Foreign students contribute an estimated C$21.6 billion ($16.4 billion) to Canada’s GDP each year, according to a 2018 government estimate.

While some students with valid study permits are allowed in to Canada, most first-years are not. College advocacy groups want the rules loosened, with clearer guidelines. Many universities have set up formal quarantine programs for international students who do get in.

Centennial College in Toronto, where international students typically make up 40-50% of the student body, has reworked dozens of its programs to run entirely online for the fall. It expects international enrollment to be 25% below its pre-COVID targets.

“We have an aging population, so we need to bring in skilled people to the country,” Virginia Macchiavello, the school’s international director, said. “We need to change our mindset from, ‘these are just international students.’ They’re future Canadians.”

($1 = 1.3167 Canadian dollars)

Japan exports fall 15% in August as pandemic pummels trade

By ELAINE KURTENBACH, September 16, 2020

MITO, Japan(AP)— Japan’s trade surplus widened in August as the pandemic pummeled a wide array of industries and sapped consumer demand.

The 15% drop in exports from a year earlier was outpaced by a more than 20% decline in imports, according to preliminary data from the Finance Ministry released Wednesday.

In one rare bright spot, exports to China rose 5%. But both exports and imports with the U.S. fell more than 20%, helping reduce the politically sensitive trade surplus by 20% to 373 billion yen ($3.5 billion).

Many Japanese manufacturers provide chemicals, equipment and components for products assembled in China. Robust exports have helped drive growth in recent years but suffered as China’s economy slowed and the pandemic took hold.

The pace of the decline in exports has been lessening as pandemic-related shutdowns in China, the U.S. and Europe eased. Exports fell 28% year-on-year in May, 26% in June and 19% in July.

Exports in August totaled 5.23 trillion yen ($49 billion), outpacing 4.98 trillion yen in imports ($47 billion), leaving a surplus of 248 billion yen ($2.4 billion). That compared with a 152.2 billion yen deficit a year earlier.

Trade in most categories of products declined in August, with exports of transport equipment such as vehicles falling 23%. Exports of computers and phones rose, however, reflecting strong demand as many companies and schools adjust to remote work.

Weakness in exports to Southeast Asia took a toll, falling nearly 24%, as trade and travel have languished amid strict quarantine restrictions.

Helping to boost the trade surplus, imports of oil, gas and other fuels plunged 45%, partly thanks to lower prices for many commodities. Overall, imports have been falling for 16 straight months, in part due to lower prices for oil and other goods resource-scarce Japan must source overseas.

Despite the latest weak data, surveys of manufacturers show new export orders are recovering, said Tom Learmouth of Capital Economics.

“But while goods exports will continue to recover as activity picks up in Japan’s trading partners, exports of goods and services may not reach pre-virus levels until early-2022,” he said in a report.

Containers are placed at a port in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, on June 17, 2020. Japan’s trade surplus widened in August as the pandemic pummeled a wide array of industries and sapped consumer demand, according to preliminary data from the Finance Ministry released Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020.

Cars to be exported are parked at a port in Yokohama, near Tokyo, on July 6, 2020.

International travel fell 65% in first half, could take four years to recover, U.N. tourism body says

MADRID(Reuters)- International tourist arrivals plunged 65% in the first half of 2020 compared to last year, data from the World Tourism Organization showed on Tuesday, translating into an estimated$460 billionloss in export revenues.

Just over half of destinations eased travel restrictions by early September but a return to 2019 levels of tourism could take between two to four years, according to the Madrid-based United Nations’ tourism body.

“Safe and responsible international travel is now possible in many parts of the world, and it is imperative that governments work closely with the private sector to get global tourism moving again,” UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said.

A total of 440 million international arrivals were lost between January and Junethis year, with Asia and the Pacific the hardest-hit region at 72% less tourists than last year.

Europe saw a 66% drop in arrivals, compared to a 57% decline in Africa and the Middle East and 55% in the Americas.

A room at the Ramada by Wyndham hotel now converted to a hospital bed in Belfast, for patients recovering from coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, Belfast, Northern Ireland, April 9, 2020.

Ireland delays relaxing strict COVID-19 travel restrictions until October

By Conor Humphries

DUBLIN(Reuters)- Ireland on Tuesday announced new rules that will likely cut popular holiday destinations Greece and Italy from a quarantine-free “green list” and leave some of Europe’s strictest travel restrictions in place for another month.

Countries with 14-day COVID-19 infection rates under 25 per 100,000 will be placed on a Green List that will exempt arrivals from those countries from quarantining for 14 days on arrival in Ireland.

The green list was initially made up of countries with lower infection rates than Ireland, but the government stopped updating it in August when Ireland’s infection rate rose sharply and the list of 10 countries has been frozen since.

The government has not yet published the new green list, but only 10 of 31 countries monitored by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control figures were below the 25 cases per 100,000 level on Tuesday.

Greece and Italy, which are on the current list, were above that level.

Ryanair, which has taken legal proceedings to try to force the government to ease its restrictions, condemned Tuesday’s announcement as “more delay and indecision”.

It has threatened to close bases in the country’s second and third largest airports, Shannon and Cork, for the winter unless travel restrictions are eased.

Ireland has registered 48.5 cases per 100,000 people over the past 14 days, the 17th highest of 31 countries monitored by the ECDC.

Prime Minister Micheal Martin said Ireland plans to adopt a coordinated EU system of travel restrictions once they are approved at a meeting of EU ministers on Oct. 13.

Draft guidelines published earlier this month suggested that those guidelines would remove travel restriction on countries with 14-day infection rates of under 50 per 100,000.

A shuttered pub is seen with hoarding over its windows, closed due to government coronavirus restrictions amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Dublin, Ireland, September 3, 2020.

Ireland delays reopening of Dublin bars as COVID-19 case numbers climb

DUBLIN(Reuters)- The Irish government delayed on Tuesday the planned reopening of all pubs in Dublin following a surge in COVID-19 cases in the capital, but bars across the rest of the country will be allowed to open next Monday.

Ireland is moving to wind down some of the most cautious COVID-19 restrictions in Europe, but a seven-fold increase in infections since the start of August has prompted the government to delay some measures.

Bars that serve food have been allowed to open since the end of June, but so-called “wet bars” that just serve drinks remain closed.

“Wet bars will open on the 21st (of September) for the rest of the country but the very strong advice we got from the public health doctors was, given what is happening in Dublin, just don’t do that for now,” Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said.

Ireland has registered 48.5 cases per 100,000 people over the past 14 days, the 17th highest of 31 countries monitored by the European Union’s independent European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, but the rate in Dublin is double that.

Pub lobby group the Licensed Vintners Association said it was “devastated and disappointed” by the move.

The government unveiled a new five-level system of COVID restrictions on Tuesday and said the whole country was currently on the second lowest level.

[120th U.S. Open eve] All preparations are ready...Sung Kang tees off 8:12 p.m., tonight... (2024)

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