US-based South African golfer Dylan Frittelli appeared on Compleat Golfer’s lockdown diaries and shared his initial feelings around the lockdown, writes WADE PRETORIUS.
Lockdown diaries: Dylan Frittelli
‘I’m over in Austin Texas right now, in my house,’ he told Compleat Golfer.
‘I’ve got two roommates with me, one’s a golfer as well and the other guy works for American Airlines, and they have two girlfriends, so the girlfriends come and go every now and then but we’re trying to keep it to three of us in the house as much as we can.’
Like everyone, Frittelli has been faced with a completely unknown situation where information on the pandemic and measures to best control it have changed since the world went into lockdown.
‘Yeah, it’s been interesting. I was obviously at The Players Championship when the PGA Tour shut down, the European Tour a little bit ahead of it, but I had to get back to Austin.
‘I flew commercially, which was actually kind of scary – hardly anyone was on the flight. But I got back to Austin. I said, “Okay, I can hang at home for a week or so and not do anything” … and I did my research and figured out what the virus was doing, how it works, how I can protect myself, and luckily I have a doctor that’s on my team and he gave me some good advice.’
The two-time European Tour winner admits that it’s taken some time to get grips with how to stay as healthy as possible.
‘Initially, it was, oh, it’s fine to get the virus, like, you’ll kick it and you’ll be okay.
‘And then there was a shift about a week or two later; he was like, yeah, let’s try not to get it. He deals with a lot of other athletes, and he said there are some cases where young people have had some tough times kicking the virus and it’s given them like, long-lasting effects.
‘So he wanted us to just like, totally try and isolate as much as we can, train less than 70% effort, not go over that.
‘So I’ve made those adjustments in, what is this, week six now, that I’ve been at home. I’ve been able to exercise a little bit, train with my trainer, but yeah, I’m just trying to stay away from as many people as I can, just waiting for the virus to come down so there’s not a huge risk of picking it up.’
Frittelli won the 2019 John Deere Classic in his debut season and is exempt on the PGA Tour.
