OAKWOOD — It has been a sight sorely missed the past month or so with the outbreak of COVID-19.
And for area golf courses, it’s been a sight for sore eyes.
There have been few, if any, positives and activities that the population as a whole have been able to latch onto with social distancing, and now being told to adhere to shelter-in-place orders.
However, for public courses like Chattahoochee Golf Course in Gainesville, and Chicopee Woods and Royal Lakes in Oakwood, families have dusted off their golf bags and shoes to rediscover what used to be a time-honored tradition.
“This has been a tough time for all of us but if there is something exciting and nice to see, we’ve had tons of families come to the course to play and practice together,” said Chicopee Woods general manager Lennie Holland. “There have been a ton of kids as well and that’s always nice to see. Coming out to the course is probably one of the few things people can still do outside and we’ve seen a big increase over the last few weeks.”
Chattahoochee general manager Roger Hogan said they have seen the same trend as well.
“We are seeing a lot of kids and families as well, and people playing during the week that you wouldn’t normally see,” Hogan said. “It’s fun to see all the activity out here.”
Luke James, acting general manager for Royal Lakes Golf and Country Club, said they, too, have experienced a mini-boom during the crisis.
“The last three weeks or so we’ve had about 30 percent more rounds played than usual,” James said. “A lot of families and kids as well. The last two weekends we have not had an open tee-time from the time we opened. It’s great to see this for golf in general.”
But Hogan did not think the increased numbers were necessarily tied to recent circumstances.
“I still think there are as many people playing golf the last few years as ever before. It was just that there was probably an oversaturated market of courses,” Hogan said. “Back in the 90s, the National Golf Foundation said that the game was growing so fast they wanted a new course nationwide to be opened every day. There eventually became so many courses that while the number of overall rounds was up nationwide they were spread out over a lot more places.
“But I can tell you we’ve been busy, busy, busy the last three weeks. We hardly have an open tee-time on any given day. That’s fun to see.”
On Wednesday both the City of Gainesville and Hall County governments issued shelter-in-place orders. However, both will allow golf courses to stay open under Section 2.5 (c), “To engage in outdoor activity, provided the individuals comply with Social Distancing Requirements as defined herein, such as, by way of example and without limitation, walking, hiking, running, or bicycling.”
Social distancing is almost natural on any golf course, but Holland said they have added some fine-tuning to help even further.
“We have increased the distance between tee-times from nine minutes to 12 minutes and we have raised the cups on the green so that you can retrieve your ball without having to touch the cup or the flag stick,” he said. “We are disinfecting the carts before each use and after they are done. We’re only taking credit cards or debit cards, no cash. But we’re seeing that most people are social distancing on their own and so far everything seems to be working well.”
Hogan and James both said all those same measures also are in place at Chattahoochee and Chicopee Woods, with the addition of raising the cups out of the ground so that players can just hit the cup when putting.
But James, a former Johnson High standout, said he expects the new orders to have an effect.
“I think it probably will in some ways,” he said. “But hopefully not too much. All of this is uncertain so I guess we’ll have to see what happens.”
