No decision has been made yet on whether the forthcoming Ryder Cup will go ahead as planned following the wave of terrorist activity that struck the United States yesterday.
A spokesperson for the European Tour confirmed to
ireland.com
today that, "no decision had been taken to cancel the event at this stage."
Mark Calcavecchia, an experienced member of the US team suggested the biennial event, due to take place at the Belfry in England from September 28 - 30, should be postponed.
"We're due to fly out on Sunday week to England and my guess is that is too soon after this tragedy."
The US team traditionally have dinner with the President before they set-off to compete in the highly charged match but, "that is not going to happen now," confirmed the 1989 Open champion.
"We are all devastated by what has happened with so many innocent people killed. I think you can forget about the Ryder Cup for a few months."
Fellow team-mate Jim Furyk was also keen to put things into perspective:
"We're supposed to leave in 13 days. It's an important event. It's the Olympics for us. But there are more important things in life."
However, the 1999 European captain and chairman of European Tours' tour committee, Mark James suggested postponing the event is not a realistic option:
"I am not sure either team or either tour could manage to fit it into the schedules, that would be very difficult at such short notice."
He told Sky SportsNews: "My feeling would be that if it did not go ahead this time, we would just wait until 2003 and carry on from there."
Already the first day of this week's PGA World Championship at St Louis has been postponed. Organisers hope to play 36 holes on Friday and complete the event as normal over the weekend.
Additional reporting by PA