Craig Kessler agrees with the argument that most golfers and those running golf courses in the Palm Springs, California, area are making about golf being a healthy and safe activity.
Many insist courses should remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But there is a difference between being correct in fact and correct in the eyes of the public.
“They are right, but this is a case, as is so many things, where you are right, but there are other things that are right and maybe trump that in terms of public policy,” said Kessler, the director of governmental affairs for the Southern California Golf Association.
Kessler, whose job is to be a liaison between the golf industry and various governmental agencies, has been swamped in the last three weeks among orders from state and local authorities to shut down courses while many golf courses craft arguments to stay open.
The debate over golf in a pandemic world is evident in California, where some golf courses have never closed despite orders that public and private golf courses should shut down, with an updated date of June 19 for the closures to remain in place.
Now, at least two golf courses that had been closed are re-opening, touting the health and recreational aspects of the game as well as modifications and restrictions aimed at keeping golfers safe.
Two courses re-opening this week
Desert Horizons Country Club, a private 18-hole course in the resort town of Indian Wells, and Terra Lago Golf Resort, a 36-hole public facility in Indio, both said play would resume on their courses Wednesday after being closed for a week or more. However, later in the day Wednesday, Terra Lago was closed again.
Each course provided a list of safety precautions the facilities were following, including closing of clubhouses, restaurants and other facilitates, limits of one rider per golf cart, advising golfers not to touch flag sticks, eliminating rakes form bunkers and modifying cups so the ball doesn’t drop top the bottom of the hole.
“Based on all of the above, your Board believes that Desert Horizons Country Club has met its obligation under the Governor’s Order by closing all golf facilities and services,” the memo to members said. “Your Board of Directors also recognizes that the golf course is owned by golf members of DHCC. The Board believes golf, provided social distancing is strictly observed, is an open space activity which greatly promotes healthy living that benefits everyone.”
The re-openings come on the heels of a petition signed by 21 desert country club general managers sent to Supervisor Manuel Perez asking that the county re-assess its order to close all public and private courses while still allowing the courses to be maintained.
“We believe that golf should be treated the same as walking, running, cycling and other outdoor recreational sports and activities that offer the benefits of social distancing,” the petition reads. “By the game’s nature, golfers play more than six feet apart and, in most cases, remain up to hundreds of feet apart.”
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The petition came with a list of suggested modifications for clubs that closely mirrored the actions at Desert Horizons and Terra Lago.
Kessler said the Riverside County order is not the strictest in the state – that honor might go to the County of Los Angeles – but that the order is clear: Shut down your golf course.
Staying open or re-opening in violation of county orders might actually do more harm than good for the game, Kessler said.
“To the degree to which golf has made and sustained a powerful argument that it is to be among the first of the activities to come back online when we unravel this stay-at-home order, it could harm (golf), all of the game, not just a handful of courses,” he said.
Too many inconsistent rules
Kessler knows first-hand the issues of the last few weeks, having been part of conference calls and press conferences on a state, county and local level. He knows that in Orange County, which has an order similar to Riverside County, authorities are going to clubs in violation and shutting them down. But in San Luis Obispo Country where there are “fewer golf courses than there are in a two-block area of Palm Desert,” he said, golf remains open.
Organizations like the SCGA, the Southern California PGA and the California Alliance for Golf are focusing now on having authorities view golf as a recreation like walking, running, cycling or hiking, not as a separate activity that deserves separate orders.
“I think it is two things,” Kessler said of the industry focus. “To get a consistency (of rules) across the board, and to make sure the game takes its rightful place as an activity that can and should come back online, when the curve of the virus says to come back online.”
While Kessler agrees with the points being made by many throughout the industry – that the game can be safe in the pandemic, that the very nature of the sport promotes social distancing and that the game is a proper recreational activity for these times – he says those arguments are lost in the court of public opinion.
“Once that happened, the very elected leaders who said the game could be played suddenly changes, because that’s the court they listen to the most,” Kessler said. “And from that point, things got tighter and tighter and tighter.”
Kessler also believes that people who are caught up in arguing the case for golf might be missing the larger picture of the pandemic. As the pandemic numbers grow and death numbers grow, Kessler said we could come to a point with an overtaxed healthcare system where a 20-year-old is given a ventilator and a 50-year-old is denied one.
“Which means we’ve just decided that someone is going die,” he said.
Kessler said that while some courses have been called out on social media or even helicopters for television stations showing play on a supposedly closed course, enforcing the Riverside County rules on golf can be as difficult as telling someone not to throw a football in a park. But the industry as a whole wants to be ready when social distancing ends and recreational activities return.
“I’m pretty confident that the golf industry will develop a set of disciplines so that when golf comes back online, it will be a disciplined day,” he said.
Larry Bohannan is The Palm Springs Desert Sun golf writer. He can be reached at (760) 778-4633 or larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at Sun.@Larry_Bohannan.