How the first known pro golfer with the coronavirus lucked into getting tested

The first known professional golfer to test positive for the coronavirus keeps a grip on his 8-iron as he recounts his past month.

Through it all, Victor Lange has held on to the game.

It’s been some journey for the 26-year-old South African. The sheer luck that he was tested. The diagnosis. The quarantine. It’s been a lot to manage. But he’s getting through it.

Less than three weeks ago, Lange was just like any other hungry tour pro, grinding out a living on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica. He made his first start of the season in Mazatlan, Mexico — his 51st-place finish earned him $731 — then flew back to South Africa for a little R&R.

Over the next six days, Lange hung out with his girlfriend, Gabriella Van Niekerk, and some other friends on beaches and hiking trails in Durban, on South Africa’s east coast. On March 14, the penultimate day of the trip, Van Niekerk hurt her toe, resulting in a hospital visit the next day. When she and Lange arrived, doctors asked Lange if he had been showing any symptoms of coronavirus. He hadn’t. They also asked him if he had traveled outside of the country in the past 21 days. He had.

“They said, ‘No, OK, that’s fine, but basically we can’t help [your girlfriend] unless we first test you for the coronavirus,” Lange told GOLF.com in a phone interview earlier this week. “I never intended to go out for a test. I would have never gotten tested, because I wasn’t sick at all, if it wasn’t for her toe.”

Lange called his parents, Suzette and Richard, in Johannesburg and told them about the test. He asked if they thought he should rent an Airbnb and stay put until he got the results. But because his parents hadn’t seen him since he left for Mexico and he was showing no signs of illness, Lange decided to return home with Van Niekerk.

Two days later, the doctor called. Lange had tested positive for Covid-19. The medic told Lange his lack of symptoms — asymptomatic coranavirus-carriers aren’t uncommon — was an encouraging sign but ordered a 14-day quarantine for him and the others in the house. After taking the call in his bedroom, Lange stepped back out to share the diagnosis with his girlfriend and parents.

“I think because I had been on the phone for so long, and they knew I had been tested, I think they knew who I was on the phone with,” Lange said. “When I walked outside, they all kind of looked at me, and I didn’t have to say anything. They saw the look on my face.”

Lange is about halfway through his quarantine and still feeling healthy. In other good news, none of his family members have contracted the virus. At the end of the two weeks, he will be tested again to ensure he is virus-free.

In the meantime, Lange is up at 7 a.m. each day. He exercises twice daily and sends videos of his workouts to his friends to show them that he’s keeping active; he also has taken a few golf swings in the backyard. Lange dines alone and sanitizes his eating area when he’s finished. He’s burning his way through Netflix and Amazon Prime, thanks to mom and dad finally breaking down and installing Wi-Fi.

Lange has called and emailed player after player on the Latinoamerica tour. It’s impossible to pinpoint where he contracted the virus. Maybe Mexico, he thinks. Maybe at an airport. Maybe on the beach. But he knew he had to spread the word quickly.

“Obviously I have a lot of good mates on Tour, and I just spent the whole week together and now all of a sudden I found out I got Covid-19,” he said. “My concern was for my fellow players. I didn’t even think twice about it really…

“Let’s say fictitiously I did have it when I was playing, I was in contact with a lot of players and a lot of players are going home to their families. I was just concerned really. I thought it was my obligation to tell the Tour. I didn’t want to make anyone sick.”

Lange agreed with the PGA Tour’s decision to suspend play across all of its tours, and he believes the Tour should take its time in deciding when to return. It’s not worth getting anyone sick, he said. Golf will still be there whenever everyone returns.

Golf has always been there for Lange. Even under these trying circumstances, it still is.

During his somewhat lonely quarantine, Lange said he has been emboldened by memories from his childhood and all those fairways and putts he missed learning the game as a youngster in Johannesburg. “All professionals these days start at a very young age, and we’re all bad when we started, but we had to push through that and practice and work on our games,” he said. “Mentally going through that process taught you how to deal with adversity.

“When times are dark, that’s when you need to show some mental fortitude,” he added. “It’s obviously easy to have a good attitude when things are going well, but I think it’s when times are tough, that’s when you find if you can deal with the problems that are facing you.”

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