‘Golf courses could now reopen’ says professor of tropical medicine 

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One of the world’s leading tropical medicine scientists has singled out golf as a game that can be played safely provided guidance is issued and rules are followed, leading to calls that golf courses currently closed due to the lockdown should be allowed to reopen.

This comes as areas throughout the world are beginning to allow golf to be played in a first wave of easing of pandemic restrictions.

Professor Samuel McConkey, the head of the Royal College of Surgeons’ department of international health and tropical medicine in Ireland, who also sits on the scientific advisory committee of the European Vaccine Initiative and was former honorary consultant in infectious diseases at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, has told the Irish Times that golf can be played at this time provided clubhouses are not used and golfers socially distance.

He added that the UK might need to follow the ‘bubble’ approach set by New Zealand and effectively close its borders until a vaccine is found, if golf clubs, sport and society in general is to return to normal.

But he stated that even if the UK doesn’t do this, games of golf can be played – even in groups of four people each from a different household – provided each golfer follows certain rules.

“Golf is played outside in the open air, and almost always two metres away from other players,” he said.

Professor Samuel McConkey. Image from Twitter

“So my opinion is that playing golf, even two or four players from different houses together, could be done relatively safely if sick people and their contacts stay away, people come dressed and do not use changing rooms, gyms or the clubhouse facilities. A guidance plan is the best way forward, not each club deciding itself.”

McConkey said other sports such as single-handed sailing and horse racing could also return “with a two-metre social distancing rule in place very soon”.

However, a return for other spectator sports that attract large crowds may take a lot longer, he added, and even when they do return, attendees may have to wear face masks and sit two metres apart from each other.

“Though there is still some risk from objects like door handles and hand rails. To minimise this transmission, one could restrict attendance to those less than 20 or [up to] 50 years of age, depending on what level of risk you are willing to take,” he added.

The best conditions, he stated, for sport to return in 2020 is to ‘imitate’ New Zealand’s strict lockdown. New Zealand closed its borders to foreigners and imposed a 14-day quarantine on returning residents.

“They are down to 10 to 15 cases per day. They have been doing really, really well. Maybe in three to four weeks’ time they can be down to zero cases from community transmission and that means the only cases they would have are from people bringing it into the country. You will always have that issue from incoming citizens in the 14-day quarantine. But they are sealed off and not spreading it around.

“I’m optimistic New Zealand will succeed. The Chinese have succeeded. Wuhan had a horrible outbreak, thousands of people got Covid-19, but they are now back going to cafes and restaurants in very normal social activity. That’s when sport can return to normal.

“Great Britain might decide they need to follow New Zealand and Australia, as they seem successful.

“Boris might flip and decide the New Zealanders were right all along. The British are independently-minded so they might not mind being in a little bubble for a couple of years, until a vaccine is found. And if we are in a small little bubble we can begin to do our sports.

“You have to have a proper bubble, not a pretend bubble. There is no contact from people outside to people inside the bubble, that’s the whole definition of what a bubble is; it has a sealed membrane around it. A bubble has a skin. What is being described is a balloon that has gone pop.

“Sport is possible to restart safely in the future with detailed planning, risk management and high levels of adherence.”

In the week leading up to the coronavirus lockdown in the UK, golf was being encouraged as a form of exercise to do by the likes of the UK’s chief scientific adviser.

There are renewed hopes that the UK can return to this. As well as McConkey’s comments, in areas all over the world golf is being allowed in a first wave of the lightening of tough lockdown restrictions.