Last year’s Qatar Masters champion Justin Harding is not too optimistic about the PGA Tour’s quarantine relegations for overseas based players.
The South African raised his concerns on a virtual Sunshine Tour press conference earlier this week where he emphasised the challenges faced for golf to return.
The PGA Tour recently indicated that all non American players will need to complete a 14-day quarantine period before being allowed to participate with the Charles Schwab Challenge set to start on the 11th of June.
‘I’m a Korn Ferry Tour member and they sent a 37-page memorandum with all the guidelines. I have no intention of playing a full Korn Ferry Tour as it’ll be difficult to get world ranking points in order to get into Majors and WGCs,’ Harding said.
‘Do I go over to the States and get started early and play a bunch of tournaments? But then I come back to Europe and then have to be quarantined for another 14 days. It really doesn’t make sense. I’m with Lee (Westwood) on that. You can’t take 7-8 weeks and play just three tournaments.’
Despite his reservations, Harding believes the PGA Tour’s early return to action will set the tone for other tours, like the European Tour, to follow a similar easing of golf restrictions and get players competing again.
‘I think it’s going to be interesting how we go forward. The European Tour is going to be tricky, obviously each country has different guidelines. It’s going to be difficult, I think everyone is waiting on the PGA Tour to lead the way in terms of a test (tournament),
‘The European Tour is trying to set up a schedule for now with four to five weeks of tournaments in the UK. I hope the rest of the countries reduce their restrictions by the end of that time and then we can go from a Spanish Open to a French Open. But at the moment you can’t,’ Harding added.
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