We’re more than two weeks into spring, and a prolonged run of double-digit temperatures is in the forecast for later this week.
It’s enough to make anyone want to head outside for their favourite warm-weather activity.
But if that favourite activity is golf, they may be a longer wait still in store.
“We had one of the worst winters that I’ve ever seen,” says David DeCorso, general manager of the Victoria Park Golf Club in Guelph.
DeCorso says this winter has left Victoria Park in worse shape than any of the previous 22 years he’s been at the club.
The biggest impact is on the course’s greens – the most sensitive part of any golf course, and also the one where the smallest problems can cause big headaches for golfers.
DeCorso says temporary greens may be cut into his course’s fairways while the real ones undergo further maintenance.
Victoria Park has opened for business in late March and early April respectively over the past two years. This year, they’re targeting a date later in the month.
Some courses are in better shape.
The Conestoga Country Club, for one, hopes to see its first tee times on Friday – at least for nine holes.
“We’re only about a week to 10 days behind,” says Mike Turner, vice-president of GolfNorth – which operates Conestoga and more than 20 other courses across southern Ontario.
While Conestoga and other GolfNorth courses will be open soon, others will take as long as Victoria Park, if not longer.
Turner says it all comes down to how individual courses were affected by the winter.
A course with more trees, for example, will have more shade, which means less opportunity for snow to melt.
Ice damage will affect greens, which aren’t meant to spend months at a time under a coat of ice, and some courses still have trees down from December’s ice storm as well.
But, Turner warns, even courses that open earlier won’t have perfect summer conditions from the get-go.
“It will be wet,” he says.
