The coronavirus shelter-in-place order for six Bay Area counties – Marin, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, and Santa Clara – that was announced Monday, 16 March (with Sonoma County added the next day) has thrown Bay Area residents and business owners into a tizzy, and golfers and golf course operators are no exception.
The order allows certain essential businesses to remain open: healthcare, grocery stores, gas stations, etc.; those that fall outside of that definition are allowed to maintain “Minimum Basic Operations” (provided that employees comply with Social Distancing Requirements), which is defined as “The minimum necessary activities to maintain the value of the business's inventory, ensure security, process payroll and employee benefits, or for related functions.”
Most, if not all, businesses have some level of “minimum necessary activities” but golf courses have another problem to worry about: grass.
Turf maintenance is the biggest ongoing operational task at a golf course. Tee boxes, fairways, greens, and rough all require watering, mowing, and other tending, each with its own set of requirements. It’s an ongoing job which doesn’t stop just because no one is playing golf—and now they will have to do it with no money coming in to fund it.
I reached out to some golf course operators in the Bay Area to get a feel for what they are facing:
According to Jay Neunsinger, maintenance supervisor at Boundary Oaks Golf Course in Walnut Creek, in order to keep the course in shape for a resumption of play his crew have to mow greens three times/week; tees, collars. and approaches twice a week, fairways once a week and rough every 10 to 14 days. With this minimum maintenance schedule in place his “crew” consists of himself, his assistant, and one mechanic, working four to eight hours per day.
Tom Bugbee of CourseCo, a golf-course management company with 38 courses in six states, including over a dozen in the Bay Area, echoed this minimum maintenance schedule (Boundary Oaks is a CourseCo property), and said that their courses are using only about 20% of their usual maintenance staff while “shelter-in-place” is in effect.
Even with this ongoing minimum maintenance schedule, golfers can expect courses to need two to three days to get back up to speed once the shelter-in-place order is lifted and courses are given the go-ahead to reopen.
The flip side of the reduced maintenance schedule is reduced (or non-existent) income. While private clubs will generally still have dues coming in, public courses are taking a huge hit. The lack of green fees and the income from weddings and banquets represents a huge loss; Neunsinger estimated that Boundary Oaks will lose approximately $75,000 for the month of April.
The big question is, “Who will survive the shutdown?”, and the only answer to that is, “Only time will tell.”
But what about exercise?
The March 16 Health Dept order states that ‘… individuals may leave their residence only to perform [. . .] “Essential Activities.” ’, which includes “. . . outdoor activity, provided the individuals comply with Social Distancing Requirements as defined in this Section, such as, by way of example and without limitation, walking, hiking, or running.’
In case you were hoping that playing golf would fall under the “without limitation” qualification in that statement, you can forget it—at least for the local area. Santa Clara County’s online FAQs page (https://www.sccgov.org/sites/phd/DiseaseInformation/novel-coronavirus/Pages/frequently-asked-questions.aspx) shuts that line of thought down succinctly and unequivocally:
Can golf courses remain open? No.
In some parts of the country golf courses are open, with strict limitations, but the selection is limited. GolfWorld magazine has been keeping up with the situation in the updating online article “Conflicting state directives create confusion for golf courses”. Here in the Bay Area, however, the direction is clear.
What does the future hold?
Polish up your crystal ball all you like, but my feeling is that, much like my quest to break 80, trying to predict what the golf world will look like in the aftermath of this unprecedented state of affairs is an exercise in futility. Some courses may close, and those that are able to remain open may see crowded tee sheets as deprived golfers rush back to the links after weeks (hopefully only weeks…) away from their favorite pastime. It’s a good bet that demand will certainly be high, so we’ll have to be patient—but won’t it be worth it to be out on the course again?
In some parts of the country golf courses are open, with strict limitations, but the selection is limited. GolfWorld magazine has been keeping up with the situation in the updating online article “Conflicting state directives create confusion for golf courses”. Here in the Bay Area, however, the direction is clear.
What does the future hold?
Polish up your crystal ball all you like, but my feeling is that, much like my quest to break 80, trying to predict what the golf world will look like in the aftermath of this unprecedented state of affairs is an exercise in futility. Some courses may close, and those that are able to remain open may see crowded tee sheets as deprived golfers rush back to the links after weeks (hopefully only weeks…) away from their favorite pastime. It’s a good bet that demand will certainly be high, so we’ll have to be patient—but won’t it be worth it to be out on the course again?
