White House Eases Travel Restrictions for Foreign PGA Tour Players Amid COVID-19

The White House informed PGA Tour players and caddies from outside the United States they no longer face a mandatory 14-day quarantine before entering the country for a tournament.

Rex Hoggard of Golf Channel reported the update Saturday.

The announcement was delivered to members of the PGA Tour on Friday night, 13 days before the start of the season's first major, the PGA Championship, at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.

Tour play resumed in mid-June, three months after the scheduled was halted because of the coronavirus pandemic. Seven players and three caddies have tested positive for COVID-19 since the resumption of play, per ESPN's Bob Harig.

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan told reporters earlier in July that he's fielded calls from other sports leaders about his experience trying to keep players safe while resuming play amid the pandemic.

"I think what [the commissioners are] most curious about is, what are you learning now that you're in operation and that your plans are underway, and what are some of the things that we could benefit from. I think a lot of those things are tied to the adjustments that we've made, and just being able to explain to them what we saw, what we experienced and then why we made the adjustments we've made, and how that may or may not apply to what they're going to experience when they return to play themselves. It's also what am I doing and our movements and some other things, but that's predominantly it."

The Tour is running the 3M Open in Minnesota, which will be followed next week by the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Tennessee and the Barracuda Championship in Nevada, before arriving to Harding Park for the PGA Championship.

It's part of a revamped, condensed schedule that will only see three majors played after the Open Championship was canceled. The PGA will be followed by the U.S. Open (Sept. 17-20) and the Masters (Nov. 12-15), which will see Tiger Woods as the defending champion.

The lessened travel restrictions will make it easier for international players to take part in the year's biggest events without having to stay in the U.S. for an extended period to avoid another quarantine.

Former world No. 1 Adam Scott raised concerns when the guidelines were released in early June:

"The other is it seems an asymptomatic person could operate within a tournament. If they're not showing symptoms and I somehow picked it up inside the course and I'm disqualified I'm now self-isolating [in that city] for two weeks. I'd be annoyed if that happened. I thought you'd start quite tight and loosen those protocols to normal if appropriate."

Those comments proved prophetic, as the Tour has eased restrictions before the majors.