Golf season does not officially begin until April 1.
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But if you are not one of the thousands of golfers who have already been on the local links, the local pros feel bad for you. You missed the best winter preseason in years, they say.
“For Chicagoland golfers to play in February, it’s a pretty rare gift,” said Geoff Tollefson, the head professional at the Arboretum Club in Buffalo Grove. “This is probably one of the shortest winters, in terms of how long we were closed, in a long time. We were closed, maybe,10 weeks.”
Unseasonably warm temperatures through most of the winter months and nearly nonexistent snow cover permitted many local courses to stay open well into December, then reopen in February.
As the traditional April Fool’s Day start-up approaches, the area’s pros and groundskeepers discussed the blessings and drawbacks that come with an early golf season.
“That’s a tough decision,” said Phil Blair, the head professional at the Grove in Long Grove, which started its 2016 season on March 20. “We’re really working with a skeleton crew right now to open up. But, the longer you wait, the more impatient they get.”
Tollefson said that near the end of March 2015, their faithful had already played 243 rounds. But this March —and February — has been a rarity, and Tollefson said the Arboretum has hosted 1,289 rounds so far.
Groundskeepers use extra caution this early in the season, Tollefson said. Most courses use bluegrass for their fairways, which has tough, weather-ready blades and roots, but almost every square foot of the Arboretum’s playing surface is the more delicate bent grass.
There were no prolonged, deep freezes this winter, and Blair and Tollefson said their crews had already started cutting their courses’ greenery.
“Ideally, you’d like to have a couple feet of snow to keep the warmth in the ground,” Blair said. “But with all the heat waves we got this winter, it really hasn’t been a problem.”
“My opinion is, I’d rather play golf,” Tollefson said. “If it’s going to be 55 or 60 degrees in February, let them go out and play.”
Twitter: @RonnieAtPioneer