New York
The PGA Tour’s coronavirus “issue” has become so stark, with five players withdrawing from this week’s field, that the players and caddies have been warned that if they keep failing to follow protocols there will be “severe repercussions” and the future of the circuit itself could be threatened.
After world No 4 Brooks Koepka, last week’s winner Webb Simpson, former US Open champion Graeme McDowell and crack American youngster Cameron Champ withdrew on the eve of the Tour’s third restart tournament, many expected the commissioner, Jay Monahan, to announce a cancellation of the event in Hartford especially as Connecticut had just announced a 14-day quarantine for visitors arriving from the many American states where cases are rising.
But instead Monahan insisted that the show must go on, waxing in his highly lyrical way about “the game’s values”.
But there was at least a glimpse of candour when he spoke of the memo sent out to the players and caddies at lunchtime, instructing them to get in line after repeated flouting of social-distancing regulations.
While the players and caddies have been advised to steer clear of restaurants and bars, those guidelines were apparently not so much ignored as ridiculed in Hilton Head Island last week.
“All of us have an extraordinary responsibility to follow those protocols,” Monahan said. “For any individual that does not, there will be serious repercussions, and I’m not going to get into the specifics of it.”
There have been three positive tests in all, with Koepka’s caddie, Northern Irishman Ricky Elliot, and McDowell’s bagman, Ken Comboy discovered to be infected as well as Champ.—AP
