Four Players From Last Week's Zurich Classic Test Positive For COVID-19

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Tyrrell Hatton became the four player to WD from the Valspar Championship after testing positive for COVID-19. He joins previous WD’s by Sepp Straka, Will Gordon and Brice Garnett as players who were at TPC Louisiana playing last week’s Zurich Classic.

This is the most PGA Tour players in one week to test positive since the circuit introduced testing.

This is the first time all of the players were coming from another PGA Tour event.

Best wishes to all for no symptoms or a quick recovery. And I’m sure robust contact tracing is underway to ensure there was no spreader situation at TPC Louisiana or in the travel from New Orleans to Tampa for the Valspar.

While virus news is never good, this week’s wave comes as huge numbers of Americans are getting vaccinated and the EU and UK appear close to clarifying how required vaccination passports might work for summer travel. Besides the obvious safety issues that are raised by four positives in one week, there should be concern from the golf industry if pro golfers continue to test positive, resist vaccination and still attempt travel the world.

The sport has benefited from the cruelty of the virus by becoming seen as a safe haven with positive attributes.

Maybe pro golfers can do their part to put aside the infertility and microchip concerns to keep the world safer and golf’s image intact.

The 26 PGA Tour players announced as testing positive:

Nick Watney
Cameron Champ
Denny McCarthy
Dylan Frittelli
Harris English
Chad Campbell
Branden Grace
Tony Finau
Dustin Johnson
Adam Scott
Harry Higgs
Bill Haas
Kramer Hickok
Henrik Norlander
Jhonattan Vegas
DJ Trahan
Mark Wilson
Kamalu Johnson
Padraig Harrington
Danny Willett
Gary Woodland
Scott Piercy
Doc Redman
Seamus Power
Will Gordon
Brice Garnett
Sepp Straka
Tyrrell Hatton

**Paul Casey took issue with this post and the above list, names made public by the PGA Tour (I merely presented the full list to prove the number of players who have tested positive.)

I should have made more clear that it was not meant to humiliate them but instead to document the number since the “Return to Golf”. As someone who has dealt with the impact of the virus on a daily basis since November 30th, I certainly understand many layers of the pandemic and empathize with those who have had the virus or have lost a loved one.

Casey’s remarks:

Q. We just had four players this week test positive, all who were in New Orleans last week. It's still a thing, obviously. But if they had been fully vaccinated, obviously there's been timing issues with this, the schedule, getting eligible, but in theory they wouldn't have to be tested. There's this evidence to suggest they won't even transmit it. Isn't that the way forward not only for you guys but for everybody?

PAUL CASEY: I think so. I mean, how else are you going to get out of a pandemic? Either you need everybody to have had it -- which again, my understanding, what I read at the beginning, and you don't know what's right or wrong, but my reading at the beginning was we can't -- we're not going to get rid of this thing straight away. It was, let's mask up, let's distance so that they won't overwhelm our health services. But we have no way of killing this thing.

You know, when like Shackelford is writing this morning and almost calling out those guys who have had COVID, I think that's out of order. You know, a lot of guys still don't know -- guys who have had it and I've had friends who have had it, I've not had it but guys who have had it who are my friends, they don't know how they got it, genuinely don't know how they got it and have been adhering to protocols, so I'm disappointed that Geoff would do that.

Touch wood they didn't pass it on to anybody else and didn't affect anybody else, and it seems like we've not had anybody on TOUR who's been seriously adversity affected. I know there's a couple of media personnel, people in the media who have dealt with it badly or have had adverse effect, but yeah, look, I would try to preach as much as I can. I don't want to get up on a soapbox and kind of scream it, but we all want to get through this, and how else are we going to get through it unless everybody has got antibodies or we get vaccinated.

I'm still worried about international travel coming up. I've got to go play Porsche in a few weeks and then the Open Championship, and I want to go on holiday with my mates. I usually go to Italy and that's not going to happen again for another year. So I'm sick of it, and I'm willing to do the things necessary to get through it.