World No. 4 Brooks Koepka has said Golf week who is withdrawing from the Travelers Championship after his caddy, Ricky Elliott, became the last to test positive for coronavirus on the PGA Tour.
Elliott tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday morning at TPC River Highlands, which had previously tested negative 48 hours earlier when he arrived at the tournament.
“I am going to retire to protect everyone else. I think it is the right thing to do, “Koepka said.” I don’t want to risk anyone’s life if they have respiratory problems or underlying conditions. The only way this Tour can continue is if guys do this kind of thing and are proactive about it. ” .
Elliott, Koepka and their coach Claude Harmon III went to additional COVID tests as a precautionary measure after playing a practice round with Graeme McDowell on Tuesday. McDowell said Golf week On Tuesday night, he would withdraw from the Travelers after learning that his caddy, Ken Comboy, had tested positive. Comboy is isolating himself in Florida and had not traveled to Hartford for the event. McDowell tested negative Monday and had another test Wednesday morning and planned to return to his Orlando home in a private plane.
“We all had the test on Monday, me, Claude and Ricky. We all came back negative, ”said Koepka. “We had no symptoms. Nothing.”
Pending results at their rented house near the field on Wednesday morning, Koepka and Harmon learned that they had returned negative results, but were surprised when Elliott tested positive. Koepka immediately chose to withdraw. “Ricky has my full support in this. I feel bad for him, ”said the four-time main winner. “We have to do everything possible not to spread it. We have to protect the field. That’s why we have these rules. “
Koepka has kept a tight lock on his team for the first three events on the Tour, staying alongside a chef in rented houses and leaving only to go to the golf course or get tested. The only time a team member left that bubble was on Monday, June 15, when Elliott joined McDowell and Comboy at the funeral of a close friend in Orlando. According to McDowell, Comboy now believes he may have been exposed to the virus during a commercial flight that took two days earlier on June 13 from Dallas to Orlando after the Charles Schwab Challenge.
McDowell confirmed to Golf week Wednesday morning he again tested negative for coronavirus.
Koepka says his girlfriend Jena Sims and her chef are being tested Wednesday on the golf course. Based on the results, he will decide whether to return to Jupiter, Florida today, or if they need to be quarantined in Hartford. “I’d rather be safe than sorry,” he said. All Koepka team members plan to get tested regularly in the coming days.
The positive tests for Elliott and Comboy are a blow to the PGA Tour, which has also seen two players test positive: Nick Watney last week and Cameron Champ, the result of which and WD were announced yesterday. It was revealed Wednesday that the Tour is distributing more than 1,000 Whoop devices to players and officials to monitor their health. It was the Whoop technology that initially alerted Watney to his condition.
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