Between Riverside County’s announcement late Monday afternoon that it was allowing golf courses to re-open and the end of the day, Jim Robinson said Indian Ridge Country Club in Palm Desert booked 80 tee times on its two courses.

By the time the sun rose Tuesday morning in Southern California, that number was over 220 eager golfers ready to resume play at their private club.

“I was talking to my head pro, and I said what is your over/under (on the number of players),” said Robinson, the director of golf at Indian Ridge. “He said 75, maybe 80. I said ‘dude, you are a hundred short of that.’ ”

Denied the chance to play golf for the last month by county public health orders because of COVID-19, or coronavirus, the members at Indian Ridge flocked to tee times at their course Tuesday.

The number of golf courses open for play last week in the United States has increased, according to the latest national survey of golf facilities by the National Golf Foundation.

But as golfers return to the game they love, they are likely to discover the game looks far different from the one they have always played. From on-course changes to protocols in the common areas of the game, a new normal will govern the game for the coming months.

While the county will allow golf courses to open, Riverside County’s public health officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser pointed out that the opening is being done cautiously in an era when the coronavirus is still impacting the county with nearly 3,000 positive cases and 85 deaths. That means when golfers return to their favorite courses, they may find a new protocol for how they can play.

Following the new rules

“I think our members are serious about this,” said John Cochran, general manager at Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells, where another approximately 200 golfers played Tuesday. “They still want to play golf, don’t get me wrong. They revere golf. But on Day One, I think things have gone well.”

The county order requires golfers to still think about the coronavirus and protection. Golfers must wear appropriate face coverings while playing, though golfers are discouraged from wearing either Personal Protective Equipment or N95 masks, which are in short supply and needed for health care professionals.

Other rules in the county order include no in-person dining in clubhouses or restaurants, with food and beverage operations only for delivery or pick-up orders. Club facilities like gyms, spas, beauty salons and fitness center must remain closed as well.

While many courses in the desert moved to social distancing and other protective measures before courses were closed, those measurements will return as the courses reopen with perhaps a few more restrictions. All courses are encouraged by the county to follow the protocols in the National Golf Course Owners Association’s “Park and Play: Making Your Course Social Distance Ready” program.

At Indian Ridge, Robinson said protective measures include having only eight hitting stations set up on the driving range, each at least 20 feet apart from other stations. The range is open only to golfers with tee times, not for casual practice. Golfers are asked not to show up to the pro shop or range until 15 minutes before their tee times. Those tee times are spaced 12 minutes apart, with single riders in golf carts except for household members. Golfers begin their rounds only on the first hole, rather than playing from the first and 10th tee as happens on some days.

“We’re doing this day by day,” Robinson said. “We’re not going to cannonball it. We’re just dipping our toes in the water.”

At Cimarron Golf Resort in Cathedral City, a public course, other precautions have been made for that course’s opening Thursday. On both the regulation Boulder Course and the executive Pebble Course, rakes in bunkers have been removed, as have ball washers on each tee. Ice coolers on golf carts and water coolers on the course also have been removed. In addition, on-course portable restrooms are no longer available. As with other courses, Cimarron will encourage single riders in each golf cart other than household members.

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On the Facebook page for PGA West in La Quinta, which has three private and three public-access courses, a list of other protections that are now familiar at golf courses across the country was present. Those include raised cups so that golfers don’t have to put their hand in the golf hole to get their golf ball, and flagsticks that will remain in the cups, though golfers are encouraged not to touch the flagstick. With no rakes in bunkers, golfers will be allowed to move their ball out of “unnatural” lies like footprints from other golfers. PGA West’s public-access courses will open Wednesday.

No golf in Palm Springs for now

Even with the amended county order, one desert city will not allow golf to be played at least for a few more days.

“Because the County issued its amended orders without consultation with the City of Palm Springs, the City will be reviewing the County’s order in order to determine the interplay and impacts of the County’s orders,” said a statement Monday night from Palm Springs, which issued its own course closure order March 24.

“For instance, the County’s amended orders do not specifically address common area pools and spas located within common areas of apartments and HOAs,” the Palm Springs statement said. “The Palm Springs City Council is scheduled to discuss the City’s current emergency orders — including those dealing with golf courses and other outdoor recreational facilities — at its meeting on Thursday, April 23, 2020 at 6:00 p.m.”

While the Palm Springs statement means courses in that city will remain closed until Friday at the earliest, other golf courses in the Coachella Valley can reopen immediately. That doesn’t mean those courses were prepared to open Tuesday.

Whether the courses were caught off guard by the county order allowing them to reopen after originally saying courses must stay closed until June 19 or whether they just need a few days to get facilities in order, a majority of desert courses still had no players and empty parking lots the day the game was allowed again.

That meant some golfers who have been waiting for weeks to play golf had to wait a little longer.

“When I heard that the golf courses were going to open again, I thought my husband and I might go play today to celebrate,” said Dorothy Munoz of Indio. “But we called a couple of courses around here today, and they were still closed. I guess they just have to get everything ready.”

Munoz said she and her husband play about twice a week and have missed the game, the exercise and the camaraderie when playing mostly public courses in the east valley.

“People who don’t play golf don’t understand that one of the appeals is being with other people,” she said. “With all these rules, that will be different. And I’ll wear a mask, which I’ve never done before while playing. But we can’t wait to get out there again.”

“We opened and I’ll tell you we scrambled to open, but our members have been so antsy to play golf that we just said, okay, let’s get this open,” said Cochran.

One major change at Toscana’s two golf courses for the time being is that members can no longer just show up and see if there is a tee time available. Instead, they must make tee time reservations to avoid a large gathering of people in the clubhouse or the other areas of the facilities.

“We had to bring back some of the assistant pros so we could do tee times,” Cochran said. “Another thing we are doing now in the pro shop is virtual selling.”

That means members can go online to order merchandise or even connect visually with a pro shop member to take a look at shirts and other items without having to physically be in the pro shop with other people.

Cochran said the golf ban hit Toscana and other courses in the busiest time of the year, March and early April. Restarting the game now takes the clubs closer to a time of the year when fewer people are playing the courses anyway, he said.

“By May 1, we usually close one of the restaurants,” Cochran said. “By the middle of May, most of the members have left, and by June 1 we are on minimal staff and minimal hours.”

Toscana generally closes one of its two golf courses in the summer months for maintenance and capital improvements, he added.

Cochran said his two courses were able to open Tuesday because his superintendent sensed something was happening that would cause the county to open the golf course early, so the courses were in the right shape to play. But Cochran is still trying to get his staff back together after furloughs, and he’s already thinking about how long golf’s new normal will last.

“We have a big opening party (in November). We get a couple of hundred people who come to that party,” he said. “Are we even going to be able to have that?”

Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for the Palm Springs Desert Sun part of the USA Today Network. He can be reached at (760) 778-4633 or larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at Sun.@Larry_Bohannan.