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HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA | When Nick Watney became the first PGA Tour golfer to test positive for COVID-19 on Friday at the RBC Heritage, it was unsettling but not entirely unexpected.
“It was not an ‘if’ scenario. You've got to plan for it to happen, and hopefully it's very much contained,” said Jordan Spieth, who as a member of the Players Advisory Council was involved in developing the tour’s medical plan for returning to competition during the pandemic.
Watney (above) initially tested negative before the start of the RBC Heritage but after feeling symptoms of the illness Friday was retested and found to be positive. He withdrew from the tournament and began a 10-day isolation period.
Subsequent to Watney’s positive result, the PGA Tour retested 11 people who had come in close contact with Watney and all of them had negative test results. Among those who were retested were Vaughn Taylor and Luke List, along with their caddies, who were grouped with Watney on Thursday.
Before Watney’s positive result, the tour had tested a total of 954 people since returning to competition at the Charles Schwab Challenge without a positive result.
The tour did not offer details about how Watney may have contracted the virus. He flew to Hilton Head from Texas with Sergio García and tested negative on Tuesday. García was retested (negative) on Friday after learning of Watney’s positive test.
Rory McIlroy, who traded texts with Watney but was not retested after the two had a casual conversation during the week, said Watney decided to get a second test after seeing data on his Whoop, a fitness tracking device he wears.
While the tour has put together a protocol to limit exposure for the players, caddies and other essential personnel within the tournament “bubble,” it’s not impenetrable.
At Hilton Head, where vacation season is in full swing outside the tournament site, merely going to the grocery store to stock up early in the week presented a risk with most visitors not wearing masks.
“We have done such a great job these first two weeks,” Justin Thomas said. “I mean, no offense to Hilton Head, but they’re seeming to not take it very seriously.
Carlos Ortiz said the news of Watney’s positive test concerned him.
“I heard about it, and I'm like, ‘Oh, I almost feel like paranoid now, feel my temperature, my throat is itching,’ ” he said. “I think it’s just a warning. We just need to be more careful.
“Sometimes I feel like they loosen up the restrictions, and everybody just feels free. Especially here, we’ve been out to dinner a couple of times, and it’s been so packed that we have to leave. So we just have to be careful and keep following what the PGA Tour (guidelines) are.”
Ortiz said that after seeing the crowd at a Harbour Town restaurant early in the week, he remarked that “somebody’s going to get corona here.”
He was right.
Ron Green Jr.