Golf courses preparing for opening day with new restrictions, guidelines

People will soon be able to hear one of the most recognizable sounds of spring once again – “FORE!”

Golf courses are to open Friday, but the day comes with new restrictions and rules in place for people out hitting the links due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Along with other courses in the province, the Royal Regina Golf Club and the Murray Golf Course will no longer have rakes and ball-washers out on the course and people can only share a cart if they are from the same household.

Tee times will also be 12 minutes apart instead of the usual seven or eight minutes,

Brian Dueck, the general manager at the Royal Regina Golf Club, said club officials got creative when it came to ensuring people didn’t have to touch the flag pole.

“There will be no touch points out there other than them touching their own golf clubs. We have a mechanism that will allow you to get the ball out of the hole without touching anything. You use your putter to pull a wire and it pops it up out of the hole,” Dueck said.

Murray Golf Course head professional Gus Vogelsang said the course will have its own system in place.

“There’s lots of systems out there now and who knows which is the best one. We will know in a couple weeks which one works best. Ours is just an insert in the cup that is sort of recessed down so that the ball falls in the hole about an inch but you can still scoop it out with your putter head or just grab it with your fingers and not worry about putting your hand all the way down into the cup,” Vogelsang said.

But the changes on the course haven’t dampened the enthusiasm of golfers.

“This is one of the busiest openings I’ve ever seen by far,” Vogelsang said.

Dueck said Royal Regina members have been great throughout the whole process of finding out when they might be able to get back on the courses.

“Our members were very patient. They knew that it’s brand new for everybody so hats off to them. They allowed us to do our job. The board worked very hard, as the management team did, to get things in place and the proper documents out to the membership for communication,” Dueck said.

Both the Murray and Royal Regina will have signs in place around the course to promote social distancing while on the course.

“We have a little checklist that we’re going to go over with our members and go through. They’ve all received documents already about what our expectations of them are before they get to the golf course. The key is just continuous communication and keeping those lines open,” Dueck said.

But both courses will see a hit in terms of business, with neither able to open up their restaurants for banquets and having fewer groups out.

“Our biggest thing is not going to be able to have our banquets and tournaments because all tournaments typically have a banquet, so your food and beverage is going to take a hit and our green fees are going to be down. But that’s every golf course. It’s not perfect. We’re getting back to where we are getting closer to normal,” Dueck said.

Vogelsang noted he won’t know how much business was affected by these restrictions until the end of the season.

But he believes golfing can provide some sense of normalcy during this time.

“People aren’t meant to be cooped up inside and and people aren’t meant to not be with their family and friends. Here’s an opportunity to do that and that’s important stuff,” Vogelsang said.

“I can’t stress enough how I just think the people of Saskatchewan have done a great job to get us here. When they come out to the golf course, it’s not going to be the normal look but it’s still going to be great. And a little patience is going to be needed here and there because this is new to all of us.”