Phoenix Open bosses break silence on crowd chaos after Johnson clashed with fans
Waste Management Phoenix Open chief Chance Cozby has admitted changes will have be made to next year's event after the 2024 edition descended into chaos last week.
The WM Phoenix Open has become synonymous for its party atmosphere in recent years, but scenes at TPC Scottsdale this time around appeared to overstep the mark. Fans were seen diving down mud slides as well as excessively drinking in the galleries across the course.
One spectator even made it onto the playing surface at the iconic stadium hole at the par-three 16th, and jumped into a green-side bunker before being pulled away by the authorities.
READ MORE: LIV Golf recall Laurie Canter - The wildcard star with key DP World Tour loophole
Those competing made their feelings clear, with U.S. Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson verbally hitting back at a heckler over the weekend, before Billy Horschel clashed with one fan who spoke in the backswing of his playing partner Nicolo Galletti.
Bubba Watson shares details of horror knee injury ahead of LIV Golf debut
Following the unsavoury scenes, Cozby - the executive director of tournament hosts, the Thunderbirds - revealed action will be taken to ensure there is no repeat in 2025. He told Golf Channel: "We are very proud of what we’ve built.
“I think, we’ve been tournament of the year on the PGA Tour five of the last seven years. But we don’t like what happened on Saturday. The players don’t like what happened on Saturday. Our fans don’t like what happened on Saturday, and, so, nothing is off the table.
Wild scenes broke out at the Waste Management Phoenix Open (Getty Images)“We’re going to make changes. I think everybody probably agrees that we have a very unique culture of our event. This was our 89th playing and I don’t think any of us dreamed that it would grow to this level of attendance and excitement."
On the Saturday of the event, The Thunderbirds opted to stop fans entering the complex and the sale of alcohol, after safety concerns grew thanks to a deluge of rain. The move was widely condemned by those in attendance, but Cozby believes action needed to be taken.
The fine line was when we just felt like we were really at a point on Saturday where our fans could not move around the golf course and at that moment the right thing to do was to take the steps that we did," he added. The flow of people simply could not flow, and we knew that we needed to make an operational decision at that point to get people off the golf course.”
Revealing what changes may be made going forward, he went on: “We are going to look at our general ticket admission exposure and how many are out in the marketplace. We’re going to look at our complete security plan and just how we operate.
“Saturday at the WM Phoenix Open in 2024 is going to end up being a turning point for our tournament and our organisation to make our event better. We learned so much and we know that we need to make improvements. We owe it to our fans, we owe it to the PGA Tour players that come and support this event and we’re not going to let this happen again for all these reasons.”
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
