BOWLING GREEN, Fla. – I’ve had first-tee starters tell me about the opening tee shot, about the history of the course I’m about to play, about any quirks I might anticipate during the upcoming round.
Until Thursday, I never had a first-tee starter stress the importance of social distancing. Or washing hands. Or following other CDC advisories while playing 18. But that was the kickoff to my first taste of golf during the full-blown coronavirus pandemic.
As with most courses in Florida, the Black course at Streamsong Resort – southwest of Orlando, east of Tampa and not too close to anything else – is open for play. Employing several strategies to keep players away from each other while still allowing for several hours in the sun, the highly ranked golf destination is determined to keep at least 18 of its 54 holes open as long as possible.
“We’re being very careful, and social distancing is critical,” said Jim Bullock, Streamsong’s director of sales and marketing. “We take the care of our guests and our staff very seriously, so we’re going down that path but still trying to create an opportunity for people to get outside in this big ballpark and enjoy the outdoors.”
Following several weeks later than many counties and municipalities in the Sunshine State, Governor Ron DeSantis this week issued a statewide stay-at-home order that began Friday. That order didn’t mandate the closure of golf courses. But while Streamsong is doing as many as 100 rounds some days on the Black course, the resort’s 216-room lodge shut down April 2 until May 1, with most of its employees furloughed. Several of the employees of the golf operations openly expressed appreciation to still be working, even if in a limited capacity.
The resort’s Red and Blue courses are closed, both having their greens resurfaced. The regrassing plan introduced last year was for the Blue to be closed in 2020 for resurfacing, followed by the Red in 2021. But with play and travel being limited by coronavirus concerns, the resort condensed the schedule to get both courses regrassed for an October reopening.
Like so many people, I’d been holed up in a home office for weeks. A couple nightly walks with my family through my Central Florida neighborhood had provided a little exercise, but with the National Golf Foundation having reported this week that 74 percent of golf courses (season permitting) are open across the United States, I wanted to see how golf in this era of sickness and concern measures up to what we normally experience on course.
Simply put, the golf was golf, enjoyable as ever. Streamsong’s three courses rank as Nos. 2 (Red course), 3 (Black) and 4 (Blue) in the state on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for public-access tracks, and it’s always a blast to play any of them. But much of the rest of the experience – travel to the course, walking through a clubhouse, even using a caddie – had a very different feel.
Most different was a general feeling that perhaps we shouldn’t be doing this. We all have been advised to stay home. Should I risk my health and more importantly that of others just to play golf? It’s a fair question. I was determined to take every precaution possible to make it as safe an experience as possible.
I recruited two friends who likewise had been holed up at home to join me, making the 90-minute drive to Streamsong from the Orlando area in separate cars to keep our distance. We would walk the course to avoid coming into contact with the golf carts – Streamsong is always best enjoyed on foot anyway.
The employees at Streamsong, from the greeter in the parking lot to assistant pro at the check-in desk, have been instructed to avoid physical contact and promote social distancing – no valet, no handshakes, no carrying a player’s clubs from the trunk to the bag stand. Even the caddies no longer carry a player’s bag. Instead, players can take a walking caddie who serves as a guide without carrying the sticks. The resort also has expanded options to ride, with only one player per cart to keep people farther apart.
The extent to which the staff was working to keep people from touching anything was commendable. The doors to the pro shop were propped open. Scorecards had been removed from the first-tee starter’s stand to prevent people from reaching into the box. Even a handful of tees had been scattered across the ground by a gloved employee so that a string of players didn’t need to reach into a pile of tees. I made it through arrival and check-in with nothing but the soles of my shoes coming into contact with anything.
After teeing off, it was easy to keep our distance. Our caddie, Nicky, was mindful to stay back. The biggest congestion points are tee boxes, but even there it’s possible to maintain a 6-foot buffer if you try.
Some courses have used pool noodles to prevent players from reaching into the hole to retrieve a ball. Streamsong instead has turned its cups upside down in the hole so that a ball never falls entirely beneath ground level. Flagsticks are to be left in the cup at all times, and a player can easily retrieve a ball with two fingers, never touching the pin.
Streamsong has instituted a policy of using only every other tee time on the sheet, so groups have plenty of distance between each other. I’m sure it’s possible that at some point my friends and I broke the advised 6-foot social distancing barrier, but if so, it wasn’t by much. No high-fives, no fist bumps, no sharing gear. We weren’t each in a totally protective bubble, but we weren’t invading each other’s space.
All in all, playing 18 seemed safer than walking through my neighborhood in the evening – I certainly came in contact with fewer people. I definitely was farther away from anyone than I would be in even the most coronavirus-conscious grocery store.
Was the choice to play golf the absolute safest option? No, probably not. Staying at home would be safer. Would I consider it a dangerous option? I’m not an epidemiologist and my opinion shouldn’t count for much, but the way we played felt pretty safe. With so much wide-open space, most of the round was a respite from coronavirus concerns.
From the planning stages, my biggest worry was the travel to and from the course. Fortunately for us, Streamsong was easily within range on a tankful of gas. I didn’t have to stop on the way there or the way home, so I was in my own little cocoon on the road. Any stops certainly would have raised the risk level.
All in all, it was a beautiful round of golf with a few concerns that were greatly alleviated by the staff at Streamsong. It was different, but in the end, it was golf. And that was all I could ask for in these troubling times.