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DUBLIN, Ohio – If this were a normal year, which is certainly isn’t, Dylan Frittelli would have been defending his title at the John Deere Classic this week. Instead, the 30-year-old South African found himself making headlines at another PGA TOUR golf tournament in a totally different city when he teed off with Nick Watney and Denny McCarthy on Thursday in the first round of the Workday Charity Open. Frittelli, Watney and McCarthy had tested positive for the coronavirus, the highly infectious respiratory disease that forced the TOUR to shut down in March and the John Deere Classic to be canceled last month. All three had quarantined for 10 days and had no symptoms but continued to test positive. On Wednesday the TOUR updated its protocols to so that a player or caddie who tested positive with symptoms and continues to test positive can return to competition as long as 72 hours have passed since recovery – which is defined as resolution of fever without the use of medication and improved respiratory symptoms. In addition, 10 days must have passed since those symptoms appeared. (Click here for full details) The clarification of the TOUR policy is in concert with the “Return to Work” guidelines of the CDC and was done in consultation with the TOUR’s medical adviser, Dr. Tom Hospel and other infectious disease experts. So Frittelli, Watney and McCarthy played together in the final group of the morning wave on Thursday at Muirfield Village. Frittelli and McCarthy each shot 73 while Watney, who was 2 under when he made the turn, finished with a 77. Frittelli described himself as “super happy” to be playing golf again. He originally tested positive in Hartford, Connecticut, during the Travelers Championship. He quarantined there for six days and spent next four in isolation at his agent’s house in New York. “It’s been pretty boring the last five or six days just sitting around doing nothing,” Frittelli said. “It was fun to get out there. Obviously, a few hoops to jump through yesterday. It was a little tricky situation that went on. “But that’s fine; life is full of surprises, so we’ll move on from there and hopefully get everything cemented in the coming weeks.” Frittelli, who said he felt “totally better” after the fourth day of quarantine, tested positive twice this week – taking a saliva test on Monday and another with a nasal swab on Tuesday. He wasn’t surprised. He said his doctor had told him that he might continue to return positive tests for up to a month. “I’ve got a friend in Japan who chatted to me, he said, dude, I’ve been testing for 28 days, I still haven’t got a negative,” Frittelli said. “I knew that was a possibility.” He didn’t know about the 10-day cycle of the virus, and the “Return to Work” guidelines that covered repeated positive tests without symptoms, though. “I still thought it had to come along with a negative test according to the TOUR, but obviously the TOUR is trying to monitor things as they move, and scientists and biologists are still figuring stuff out today, so this stuff is going to change all the time, and I’m glad the TOUR have kept their finger on the pulse,” Frittelli said. Frittelli said his symptoms were minor. On the Sunday night after he was originally tested in Hartford, he had some nasal congestion and some minor muscle aches for an hour or so. He also had two headaches in three days that lasted for 20 or 30 minutes each. “I did feel a little lethargic and slow, but that’s normally the case when I don’t work out or I don’t get outside or I’m not busy,” he said. Like Watney, Frittelli did lose his sense of smell about five days into his bout with COVID-19. “I was just eating regular plain meals and then all of a sudden I took some Vicks VapoRub and smelled it and I got a little burn in the nasal cavity, but I didn’t smell the menthol and I was like, that’s weird,” he said. “I was like, OK, this is the final piece of the puzzle that confirms that I had it. “But that subsequently has come back. Yesterday I finally started tasting food and smell seems to be back right now.” Frittelli, Watney and McCarthy are not allowed inside the Muirfield Village clubhouse and gym and the physical therapy trailers. But they do have a room underneath the old pro shop where the three of them can eat and “chill out together,” Frittelli said. The only negative is that he can’t work with his physiotherapist, who works with other TOUR pros. “I just drove straight in this morning actually,” Frittelli said. “I stretched at home. I ate breakfast in my hotel room and then straight to the parking lot and felt like Walter Hagen, just walked straight on to the driving range.” While Frittelli admitted the isolation made him feel a bit like an outcast, he understands the reasons. He said he hasn’t had much contact with other players but that many of the ones he’s talked to were “intrigued” by what he had experienced. “They were all asking me questions, hey, what’s going on, how did it happen, and I just explained,” Frittelli said. “I told them the truth, I told them what happened, and I tried to give them my best biology lesson that I could.” While he’ll have to wait another year for his John Deere Classic title defense, Frittelli has decided he is the “defending tournament week champion” at Muirfield Village. “I’m defending this time frame, I guess,” he said. “But no, I’m not getting any similar vibes to Silvis, Illinois, to be honest, but hopefully I can play well tomorrow and see some more golf hopefully.”

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Taking a look at what’s in store as the PGA Tour heads to South Carolina, LIV Golf prepares for its team championship and the LPGA visits South Korea.

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For some, the graduations were virtual. Other got their diplomas in drive-by ceremonies – a few even in drive-in theaters – as teachers and principals got creative in an attempt to honor the Class of 2020. Nothing was normal after the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the United States in March. Jim Furyk attended one of those socially distanced outdoor ceremonies with his wife Tabitha when their daughter Caleigh graduated from The Bolles School in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, in May. The guest list was limited to parents, with other family members watching on-line. “It was nice to see the kids get an opportunity to walk, and I think they were anxious to kind of say hello to everyone,” Furyk says. “They hadn’t really had a chance to see the class for a couple of months and went through their on-line schooling. “It was a little awkward, I think, obviously a little bit of a bummer the way it ended.” Caleigh, though, has a lot to look forward to – she is headed to Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she will compete on the track team. Helping his daughter, who is a talented pole vaulter, decide on a college brought back a lot of memories for Furyk, who turned 50 on May 12. “I broke my thumb and I signed my letter of commitment to Arizona to play golf with a cast on my hand, so it was interesting,” recalls Furyk, who graduated from Manheim Township High School in 1988. “But going through the process of being recruited by University of Arizona was fun. It was also very time consuming and difficult. You’re trying to figure out your next plan in life and trying to pick a college is always stressful.” That said, Furyk remembers the excitement – and relief — he felt after choosing Arizona over Arizona State, North Carolina and South Carolina. He liked the fact that coach Rick LaRose wasn’t looking to change his unique swing – plus, the weather in Tucson was a plus for a kid who grew up in western Pennsylvania. “He gave us a little bit of rope, and for some students that isn’t a good thing, but for me it was a really good thing,” Furyk says. “Being there with a different golf swing, being very self-motivated, and I worked very hard having that opportunity to kind of grow and flourish and not have someone tell me how to play. He let me kind of grow and learn at my own pace, which was good for me.” Furyk said the COVID-19 crisis limited the time Caleigh could spend on campus at the various schools that she was considering. He and his wife and daughter had hoped to circle back to visit some of the colleges again, but with the nation’s shutdown that wasn’t possible. “I think as a parent you want to provide some guidance and some insight, but ultimately, I wanted it to be, and my wife wanted it to be, her decision,” Furyk says. “I think we’ve always really tried to, and I’ve kind of got a little bit of this from my wife and probably got a little bit from what my parents did, but Tabitha’s always wanted the kids to be able to make decisions and we’ve kind of treated them at times as they’re older or more mature than they actually were. “So, we just tried to provide some guidance and points and what was important, try to help her organize what’s important to you.” Caleigh is thinking about majoring in graphic design, but she is also interested in music. In that regard, Belmont has one of the best schools in the country, both from a creative standpoint and the business of music. “Hopefully, she’ll be able to combine a little bit of that love with the graphic design work as well,” Furyk says. “I think that it’s a good opportunity for her to join the track team there as well and compete. So, it’s something that she likes doing, and I think it’s a good balance. Something she works really hard at and to be balanced for her.” Furyk said Caleigh and her younger brother, Tanner, who recently completed his sophomore year at Bolles, have handled the coronavirus shutdown with maturity. Caleigh, who Furyk says hides her emotions like he does, was just getting back into form after an injury over the winter when track season was halted. Tanner’s lacrosse season was canceled, too. “I think we all gathered where it was going very quickly,” Furyk says. “I think kids may have held out some hope along the way. And then, little by little, they kind of said, maybe this isn’t going to work out.” So, proms had to be canceled, and graduations reimagined. But Furyk thinks the members of the Class of 2020 will be stronger because of what happened, and he expects big things. “The words that I keep hearing, whether it’s from their school, whether it’s from other parents, is that this class had to persevere through a little bit more than most and kind of have a little different finish to their school,” Furyk says. “And so, they’ll always be remembered for that, and I’m sure for the rest of their lives that’ll keep some things in perspective for them and probably also give them the confidence that we all persevere through many aspects of their life.”

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