CLEVELAND — Golf courses have found themselves adjusting to the social distancing era and now they are looking to take advantage as the weather starts to break.
Courses have safety precautions in place to include no ball washers and no rakes in the sand. There will be a foam pool noodle ring in the cup for touchless ball retrieval from the hole.
While the measures may seem like a headache, one change that has actually benefited a golfer’s game is one golfer to a cart that has picked up pace of play, which leaves less room for chit-chat in between shots.
Despite a cool and wet spring, people were anxious to tee up this season.
"It really drove people to want to be out of the house in temperatures, golf wise, that typically they may not play in,” said Jimmy Hanlin, of Little mountain Golf Club. “They may wait a little further into the year. So the demand for golf and people wanting to be out there was there I would say much earlier than what we would typically see in bad weather."
The holiday weekend brought out the crowds. At Stonewater and Little Mountain, there were roughly 180 players a day, which is pretty much sold out. The Cleveland Metroparks said Monday rounds were 1,436 for a total of 4,105 across Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
