Rozner: PGA Tour marches on quietly with BMW at Olympia Fields

As the BMW Championship gets underway Thursday morning at Olympia Fields, there will again be no fans in attendance - and several huge names also missing from the Top 70 in the FedExCup Playoffs.

Brooks Koepka withdrew from the Northern Trust at TPC Boston with knee and hip injuries, ending his season and putting in doubt his status for the U.S. Open, which is only three weeks away.

Absent will be the likes of Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Shane Lowry, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Ian Poulter, Zach Johnson, Graeme McDowell, Brandt Snedeker, Keegan Bradley and Phil Mickelson, who entered his first Champions Tour event this week as prep for the National Championship at Winged Foot.

Put those names together and you would have yourself a pretty strong Ryder Cup team.

Some of them didn't play well enough in limited opportunities after the restart and some of them didn't play at all last fall when the 2019-20 season began, which is always a good chance to pile up points.

Tiger Woods' win at the Zozo in November is the reason he's in Chicago, though he's only played in three events since March and is still looking for the form he displayed in Japan and at the Presidents Cup. He did light it up on the outward nine Sunday in Boston, perhaps a sign that something better is on the way.

But he will need a big move this week to go from No. 57 in the standings to Top 30 and a trip to Atlanta for the Tour Championship.

"My body feels pretty good," Woods said. "I wish I would have played a little bit better (in Boston) to make it a little bit easier on me to try to get into East Lake, but this is going to be a busy stretch either way."

If Woods fails to reach Atlanta it would be the second straight year after winning at East Lake in 2018. He played very early Saturday and Sunday in Boston with Rory McIlroy and headed for Chicago and a golf course he hadn't seen since 2003, when he finished 20th at the U.S. Open.

"I didn't like the rough. That was one of the weeks I kept laying the club down," Woods said of 2003. "The golf course obviously is going to be a lot longer."

McIlroy, who had never seen the course until Tuesday, was playing great before the pause, but since returning his best finish in seven starts is a T-11 at Travelers, his only Top 20 since the Palmer in early March. This is his longest stretch since 2009 without a Top 10.

"This is going to sound really bad, but I feel like the last few weeks, I've just been going through the motions," McIlroy said. "I want to get an intensity and some sort of fire, but I just haven't been able to.

"And look, that's partly to do with the atmosphere and partly to do with how I'm playing. I'm not inspiring myself and I'm trying to get inspiration from outside sources to get something going."

No one benefits more from crowd noise than Woods, so obviously no one has lost more in the process than the GOAT.

"It is very different," Woods said. "You just don't know where the ball lands sometimes. You're expecting the roars and you don't hear anything. Normally you would get huge ovations.

"The energy is not anywhere near the same. There isn't the same amount of anxiety and pressure and people yelling at you and trying to grab your shirt or a hat off you. This is a very different world we live in."

Colin Morikawa is a tremendous talent, certainly underrated as he arrived with the Class of 2019 with Matt Wolff and Viktor Hovland, but how different might the PGA Championship have been for Morikawa on the weekend had there been the pressure of 40,000 fans on the course?

"It helps the young guys coming out that maybe haven't dealt with the crowds that you deal with week-to-week," McIlroy said. "College guys coming out that aren't really used to it, it's no different than playing in the NCAAs.

"It's the same sort of atmosphere. Having that familiarity and having it so recent is probably helpful for those guys."

One guy familiar with the course is Bryson DeChambeau, who began much larger and on fire after the restart, but in his last four events he has a pair of missed cuts and a T-30, to go along with a fourth at the PGA Championship.

DeChambeau (15-1) captured the 2015 U.S. Amateur Championship at Olympia Fields, which also hosted that 2003 U.S. Open (Jim Furyk), the 2017 Women's PGA Championship (Danielle Kang) and the 1968 Western Open (Jack Nicklaus).

Morikawa (26-1) has been amazing and makes sense here after missing the Boston cut, getting to Chicago early and getting some rest, as does Scottie Scheffler (30-1), who's due for a victory after some close calls.

Scheffler, Cam Champ (100-1) and Robby Shelton (300-1) played in a Junior Ryder Cup event at Olympia Fields in 2012, defeating Europe just days before Team USA lost at Medinah.

But generally speaking these playoff events are rather chalky, so tread lightly at Olympia Fields.

Next year, the BMW shifts to Caves Valley in Baltimore. Let's hope by then that the PGA Tour will have fans back on the course.