Each week, the PGA Tour will conduct COVID-19 testing at its tournaments, for players, caddies and a number of on-course staff and volunteers.
For this first week back, with the Charles Schwab Challenge on the PGA Tour and the Korn Ferry Challenge on the Korn Ferry Tour, the PGA Tour conducted a combined 1,559 tests.
Players and caddies were asked to conduct tests at home before traveling the tournament site, and then players and caddies and others were tested once they arrived in the host cities (Ft. Worth and Ponte Vedra Beach) for the tournament.
Among those tested who were going to go to Colonial, not a single person tested positive for coronavirus either beforehand or once they arrived in Texas.
Among those looking to play at TPC Sawgrass, however, one player and three caddies tested positive. Those positive tests were recorded with at-home tests. No one tested positive once they arrived in the Jacksonville area.
Since medical records are protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the people who tested positive were not and cannot be publicly identified.
“Certainly pleased, but if there's one thing you learn as you look back over the last 90 days and you go forward, there's steps that you take. We've passed some important hurdles. These are important steps,” Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said.
“But now we get inside the field of play. Now you think about all the things that we're asking our players and caddies and everybody that's here in this small bubble to do, we need to execute on that.”
Those who test positive at tournament site will be required to quarantine themselves in the tournament's host city, and they won't be able to participate in a tournament again until that quarantine is complete and they test negative.players and caddies took before traveling to the tournament city.
