The Golf Bug
It comes every year around the exact same time. I used to think it was a chemical reaction that occurred in my brain every April when I heard the theme music of The Masters along with the soothing tones of Jim Nantz and the appearance of fresh azaleas on CBS.
They were all signs telling my brain it’s time for golf.
The reality is golf won’t start in Illinois the same way it does every other year. Our governor recently announced some recreational activities will be allowed on May 1, provided we strictly adhere to new guidelines and restrictions. Golf is on the list of allowable activities even though the rate of COVID-19 cases and related deaths have not significantly improved.
My wife Becca is a nurse. She’s not working directly with coronavirus patients but she’s been moved to a new surgical floor and her hours have been cut, for now. Her days are different and far more uncertain than mine. She’s anxious, you can see it in her expressions. When will they need her to care for coronavirus patients? What will her responsibilities be? Where will her friends and co-workers go? Will they be okay? Will she be okay? What if I get her sick? What if she gets her patients sick? When will this all be over? I’m anxious, too. I do what I can to put her and myself at ease. We cook meals from our childhood, challenge each other to putting contests, and impersonate our neighbor who calls our dog Gypsy by the wrong name. She thinks it’s “Jimmy.” These things are helping, I think. Even though Becca smiles through it all, she carries a burden I will never fully know.
On one hand, it seems so trivial to think about golf right now. The world has bigger problems. On the other hand, golf is who I am and it’s part of my identity. With golf courses in Illinois reopening next week, I’ve been contemplating what golf will be like after all this. How can we all stay safe and actually flatten this curve? In other states where golf is already open, I’ve been asking NewClub members and Ambassadors how things have changed and if they feel ready to go back on the course. Each had a lot to say, but I wanted to see for myself. I can’t possibly expect others to feel safe out there if I wasn’t.
I booked a tee time online and I got in my car, driving south down I94 towards Indiana to Sandy Pines, a course that has been on my must-play list since a friend of mine and a local superintendent said, “If we have standing water, their fairways still bounce.” Driving across the border felt odd. First off, it only took me an hour from downtown, which is unheard of by Chicago traffic standards. Second, I was driving across a state line to play golf. Not to buy food, medicine, or find work, not to buy fireworks or cheap beer like in college, but to play golf. I had to ask myself, is this “essential” behavior? In the parking lot, all I saw was Illinois license plates and I wasn’t surprised to see the new guidelines and restrictions clearly marked around the clubhouse.
NO CONGREGATING, NO SHARING CARTS, NO PRACTICE, NO CLUBHOUSE, NO TOUCHING THE PINS.
I walked past the roped-off clubhouse and approached a window clearly repurposed to check in golfers. A voice from a tiny slit in the window asked, “walking or riding?” “Walking,” I answered. “Please swipe,” the window directed. I pulled out my credit card and swiped the machine taped to the wall. “Enjoy,” said the window. Tee times were spaced out 20 minutes apart, so there weren’t many people congregated together. I watched a mother and daughter load their bags on the same cart and move toward the first tee. I asked them if they’d like to go ahead of me, but they said they weren’t in a hurry. Hurry, I thought to myself, I actually can’t remember the last time I was in a hurry.
As I dropped my bag on the first tee and went through my pre-round ritual of pocketing tees, a ball marker, and golf glove, I heard the familiar sound of sudsy water hitting the tires and undercarriage of a golf cart behind me. I turned to see a young man, 15 or 16 maybe, with rain gear over his polo shirt and a name tag on his left chest. How different is his summer job now? How well does he disinfect those carts? I couldn’t help but wonder about his process. Did he wear a mask and gloves? What type of disinfectant solution does he use? How focused is he right now? Does he care?
I did something else on that first tee, and I had the whole round to regret it. One of my new tees had fallen out of my bag. Out of habit, I picked it up and did what I always do, something I’ve probably done on thousands of other first tees for about 25 years. I put the fallen tee in the corner of my mouth. My mother always told me to stop doing it, but it’s a habit, a habit I need to break if I’m going to play golf during a pandemic. The golf course was great. After finally playing it, Sandy Pines is one of my favorite Dick Nugent designs. The broad tees and fairways with some prominent features give the place some serious character, like the church pews on number two, the lion’s mouth on number seven, and the pot bunkers on number eight. I was enamored with the course before even making the turn and I saw why so many fellow Chicagoans made Sandy Pines a cross-border destination.
Ultimately, I felt safe on the course. Even though golfers were respectfully abided by the restrictions and stayed at least 6 feet from each other, there are a few things that I would do differently when golf starts in Illinois on May 1.
Absolutely no carts.
As someone who consistently harks on the joy and benefit of walking a golf course, this probably won’t come as a surprise. Regardless, it feels like the right thing to do for current times. I’m also not comfortable with making an employee responsible for disinfecting a surface I had the simple choice to avoid. Unless you medically need a golf cart, let’s walk.
No tee markers.
For 13 holes, I walked from each green to the nearest teeing area, not a specific set of tee markers. Posting a score seemed like a silly pursuit in all this, why would I walk 60 yards in the wrong direction?
For the last 6 holes, I played with two other golfers from Chicago and each had their own cart. It was not difficult to keep our distance, but human nature kicked in on every tee box. All three of us seemed to gravitate to the same most favorable spot. I have no idea what the infection rate is from a blade of grass, but having tee markers promotes a natural congregation of one small area, so toss the tees.
Ready golf.
Once the group arrived on the greens, I could tell that my playing companions shared my indifference for posting a score. We all knew to be outside and taking a few swings was good enough right now.
With far less pomp and circumstance, everyone seemed to step up and roll their putts without concern for the result. Most golfers talk a big game when it comes to playing “ready golf” but this is one of the first times I can remember seeing it without a player-to-player conference.
Two cups on every green.
A friend recently shared a photo displaying the foot traffic of six golfers on one green.
First, it gave me an appreciation for the work supers and maintenance crews do to protect and take care of golf’s most fragile and crucial surfaces. Second, it's why raised cups, and noodles in the cup are a good ideas and inverted cups are even better. The probability of contracting the virus from a golf cup is small I imagine, but I’d love to see a few clubs add two cups to every green, it may spread out foot traffic and lower the number of interactions with the cups and pins. In the end, if we all commit to adjusting our way of playing, we’ll continue to flatten the curve, keep each other safe, and play faster more enjoyable rounds.
After finishing up on 18, I gave a respectful nod and waved goodbye to my new socially-distanced golf pals. The round took just under 3 hours to complete. I can’t remember the last time I played 18 holes in Chicagoland that fast when we weren’t the first off the tee. The drive home was peaceful. With the sun setting behind the cornfields and crops of Northwest Indiana, I was able to reflect on everything I had just experienced. I realized that getting outside and chasing a ball has a distinct way of making me feel more like myself, something many others probably need a good deal of right now.
As much as I want to play golf, like you, I want to beat this virus infinitely more. The good news is that we can successfully do both, and by doing so we may just open our eyes to what is really most important -- our collective well being and the joy of living. We are all being asked to think about our everyday behaviors more consciously and I expect golfing during a pandemic is not any different. We need to change some of our habits and view the way we golf a little differently. If we don’t, we’re letting down our healthcare workers, our families, and our communities we are all fighting so hard to protect.
I am confident we can play golf safely, but it requires us to be patient, disciplined, mature, kind to each other, and especially mindful of our actions on and off the golf course. If we can all successfully enjoy this version of golf while keeping each other safe, we might just realize this new, simpler version of the game is just what we needed all along.