Unlike the other difficult and painful issues facing our city, from the ongoing protests to the continued work in combating COVID-19, allowing New York City’s golfers back on the links is a simple exercise that does not require a task force, data-driven studies, or a blue-ribbon panel of experts. It just takes some common sense.
Over the last six weeks or so, courses throughout New Jersey, the rest of New York state, and even New York City’s lone private golf course, the Richmond County Country Club, have been among the 98% of golf courses open for play according to the National Golf Foundation.
This is not because 98% of these governors, county executives, mayors and other leaders are blatantly disregarding public health, or face a different set of circumstances than we do in New York City. It is because they recognized that golf is inherently a “socially distant” game, and deserves consideration separate from other sports and social activities that involve close personal contact or large gatherings.
If these leaders can figure out how to safely run a golf course during COVID-19, surely we and the hard-working concessionaires who run New York City’s 13 public golf courses can, too. In fact, we don’t even have to figure it out for ourselves. Courses in our area have been using the following blueprint:
- Remove rakes, ball-washers and water coolers.
- Flagsticks should be held in place with foam inserts or some other mechanism to avoid touching.
- Tee times should be spaced at twice their normal intervals, from 8 minutes to 16 minutes apart.
- Only members of the same household are allowed to share golf carts, and they are to be sanitized and wiped down after each use.
- Golfers must pre-pay for their round online, requiring nothing more than checking in with a starter before heading to the tee.
- Pro shops and grill rooms should be closed, or open for take-out only, and masks are required to enter.
I appreciate the mayor’s desire to protect the health of New Yorkers. However, we are long past the point where keeping courses closed is a necessity to achieving that end. And shouldn’t that be the metric by which we judge what parts of our society and economy are forced to remain closed?
Their continued closure is only deepening the financial and emotional pain being felt by the concessionaires themselves, the employees whose livelihoods depend on golf being played, and the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who would love nothing more than to spend a few hours enjoying the game they love in some of the most beautiful landscapes our city has to offer.
This is an easy one to fix, and long overdue. So it should be welcome news that amidst all the serious issues facing our city right now, checking this off your list would be quick and painless, allowing you to get back to addressing those tough problems. Let’s get it done.
(Gene DeMaio is a Richmond resident.)
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June 03, 2020 at 06:11PM
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Reopen our city’s golf courses (letter to the editor) - SILive.com
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