Former Ryder Cupper Edoardo Molinari and another Italian golfer, Lorenzo Gagli, were forced to withdraw on Wednesday from the European Tour’s Oman Open after they were reportedly quarantined to determine whether they have the coronavirus.
According to an AP report, Gagli told Italian newspaper La Nazione that he was told by a European Tour doctor to return to his room for a week (on order of the Oman health ministry). Molinari, who was Gagli’s roommate in Muscat this week, was relocated to another room.
Gagli, 34, said he was tested and told that the result would be available in two days, but that he would have to remain in his room until next Wednesday, forcing him to also withdraw from next week’s Qatar Masters.
“It’s an inexplicable decision,” Gagli told La Nazione. “Only us two have been excluded from the tournament, but I arrived in Muscat [Oman] last Sunday, and over the last few days, I’ve worked out in the gym with dozens of other players. I ate with them and traveled by bus with them.
“If there was a risk of contagion, then they would have to isolate dozens of golfers and cancel the tournament.”
In an email to the AP, a European Tour spokesman said only that Gagli and Molinari have withdrawn from the Oman Open on “medical grounds.”
Molinari, 39, is the brother of 2018 British Open champion Francesco Molinari.
Italy has reported 447 cases of the coronavirus, the most of any country outside Asia. Twelve people infected with the virus have died in Italy since Friday, all of them elderly, having other health conditions or both, civil protection chief Angelo Borelli told the AP.
