What Would Have Been: US Open final round for Father’s Day

The golf to watch on Father’s Day this year won’t be the U.S. Open as is usually the case. There also will be no live baseball to watch this week from either the major leagues or the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. While the PGA Tour is playing again without spectators, and NASCAR ran its first race in front of limited fans, almost entirely military members, The Associated Press looks at some of the other sporting events that had been scheduled the week of June 15-21:

WINGED FOOT WAITS: While the PGA Tour will be in Hilton Head, South Carolina, for its second tournament back since a three-month hiatus because of the pandemic, this is the U.S. Open’s traditional spot - with the final round on Father’s Day. The RBC Heritage, which like Colonial last week will be played without spectators, was originally scheduled in April. The U.S. Open at Winged Foot in New York will be played Sept. 17-20, two weeks after the Tour Championship that wraps up the 2019-2020 schedule. Gary Woodland won at Pebble Beach last year by three strokes over Brooks Koepka, the winner of the previous two U.S. Opens.

TRIVIA BREAK: When was the last time the U.S. Open wasn’t played on Father’s Day? (answer at bottom)

MLB BASEBALL: Gerrit Cole is missing a possible chance to pitch in Pittsburgh as a visitor for the first time. Cole is still waiting for his regular-season debut with the New York Yankees after signing a record $324 million, nine-year free-agent deal last winter. Cole was drafted in the first round, 28th overall, by the Yankees in 2008. He went to UCLA instead, and three years later was the first overall pick by the Pirates. He played his first five big league seasons in Pittsburgh. In his two seasons with the Astros, he faced the Pirates only once - in Houston.

The Yankees were scheduled to play a three-game series this week in Pittsburgh, and then would have headed to Minnesota for a three-game series and rematch of last year’s best-of-five AL Division Series that the Yankees swept.

NBA FINALS: The resumption of the NBA season with only 22 teams, and all of them in Orlando, Florida, is still more than a month away. But this would have been the latest week possible for the conclusion of an uninterrupted season - had the best-of-7 NBA Finals stretched to six or seven games. The Toronto Raptors beat the Golden State Warriors in six games last year.

CWS: The week in Omaha would have started with the first elimination games at the College World Series, then the rest of the games in the two double-elimination brackets to determine the two teams to play in a best-of-three series for the national championship.

TRIVIA ANSWER: 1975, when the U.S. Open finished on June 22, the week after Father’s Day.

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