Golf commentator questions 'bizarre' PGA Tour decision: "What are we doing?"

Nick Dunlap will be a lonely man at the Arnold Palmer Invitational after the PGA Tour revealed a 69-man field for the signature event.

Dunlap, 20, has drawn the short straw and will tee it up alongside a marker at Bay Hill. 

The young American became the first amateur to win a PGA Tour event in over 30 years when he lifted the American Express in January.

The bizarre phenomenon of golfers playing on their own is not as rare as you might think.

Both Adam Svensson (2023) and Cameron Champ (2022) were forced to play on their own at the Tour Championship.

Golfers have also regularly been made to play with famous former Augusta National marker Jeff Knox after the cut is made at The Masters. 

Knox, a member of Augusta National, famously outscored Rory McIlroy in 2014 when the pair played together. 

Although the scenario is far from new, the decision has already received considerable criticism online, with several pundits and figures within the world of golf commenting on it. 

I mean what are we doing??? Let one more guy in the field https://t.co/lGoBmnoou9

— Colt Knost (@ColtKnost) March 5, 2024

Lou Stagner, golf stat guru, even suggested donating the place to charity so that an everyday hacker could attempt to navigate the notoriously tough track. 

A fun but wholly impractical suggestion, perhaps. 

Andrew Novak, who finished one spot outside qualification through the Aon Swing Five, even offered to play as a marker for Dunlap.

He posted on X: "I'll play as marker this week, but if I top-10 again y'all gotta pay me. Deal?"

Shrewd mathematicians will have spotted that a 69-man field could have easily been split into 23 threesomes, but despite that, the PGA Tour has insisted that every effort will be made to ensure twosomes are played.  

A PGA Tour spokesperson told GOLF: "Every effort is going to be made in signature events to play in twosomes off of one tee now that we are through with the West Coast."

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