Is there a proper plan to deal with positive Covid-19 case in Cups and Shields?

THE big news in golf this past week was off course, where Nick Watney tested positive for Covid-19 and had to withdraw from the Heritage Classic at Harbour Town.

I’m sure you’ve all read what happened and I’m not going to rehash it again, but a couple of things are worth considering as a result.

Firstly, the Tour’s first two events upon its return to action were played in Texas and South Carolina, supposedly two of the USA’s hotbeds of Coronavirus, yet thankfully, only one person tested positive between the two events and it seems that the PGA tour had everything in place to deal with such an occurrence.

It’s quite an achievement in fact that Watney had the only positive test between the two events when you consider three hundred players and their caddies participating along with up to 800 others including organisers, television crews and the press, so the PGA Tour must be doing everything right.

Amazingly, Sergio Garcia tested negative after giving Watney a ride to Harbour Town in his private jet as they both live in Austin Texas , while all eleven people that Watney had come into contact with at Harbour Town also provided negative tests.

According to Justin Thomas the people at Harbour Town were acting like the pandemic was all over with most on the island unconcerned whilst adopting a laissez-faire attitude and hopefully, Watney will be the only one to test positive after this event but we wont know that for a few days yet.

The whole story got me thinking about the forthcoming Cups and Shields and what would happen (God forbid) if a positive case is traced back to one of the matches?

I’m by no means a prophet of doom and have maintained a very positive attitude throughout this whole pandemic (whilst being an opponent of the return to competitive golfing action) but what measures are in place should such an event occur, that a player would show symptoms and test positive in the days after competing in one of the Cups and Shields matches ?

We’ve been very lucky here in Kerry as one of the least affected counties throughout the whole saga, but teams from other counties compete in our West Munster section. And don’t forget that several of our Kerry clubs may well be calling on the services of players who live and work in big centres of population like Cork city or Dublin, but play their golf out of a Kerry club at the weekends.

Is this not increasing the risk of spreading the virus?

Please God it may never happen, but if it does, I hope that there is a plan in place to be able to trace and isolate the source!