Desert Blume Golf Club remains closed due to cold temperatures and the global pandemic (Photo courtesy of Bob Schneider)

By Scott Roblin

Wait and See

Area golf courses weighing options on opening during pandemic

Apr 6, 2020 | 5:48 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Any other year, local golfers would be gearing up for their first round of the spring at a variety of different courses.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has thrown that all into question however, providing an uncertain future for both golfers and course operators.

At Desert Blume Golf Club south of the city, they’ve swapped out the usual hustle and bustle of getting the course ready to open for a wait and see period.

“Typically we’d be prepping our kitchen and pro shop areas, we’d be hiring staff, we’d be making plans for various events,” said general manager Trevor Ellerman. “All of that type of stuff has obviously been put on hold. We haven’t hired any staff, we’ve cancelled all events including all of our weddings and business luncheons.”

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Those cancellations have posed a significant challenge for Ellerman and the staff at Desert Blume, as they are still roughly two weeks away from their earliest opening date.

It’s the latest start to a season that Ellerman can recall and notes that it’s already impacting the club financially.

“We definitely will qualify for the 30 percent loss of revenue subsidy,” said Ellerman. “It’s hard to say exactly, but I would hazard to guess that it’s probably going to be up in the 70 to 80 percent loss of revenue.”

The vast majority of Medicine Hat and area courses are in the same boat as Desert Blume waiting for opening day, save for one.

Last week, the par-three Paradise Valley Golf Course became one of the first clubs in the province to allow public play.

“We’ve been working with Alberta Golf and the National Golf Course Owners Association to make sure that we have all the standards and everything in place to keep our customers and staff safe,” said co-owner Dawn Postnikoff.

The recent cold snap meant Paradise Valley was only able to take advantage of two days of play, however remain the only open course in the area.

Postnikoff said golfers are being asked to practice proper physical distancing and to not share clubs or carts.

“We’ve changed that to tee times only and our tee times are spread 20 minutes apart to make sure there’s no bunching up on the tee boxes,” she said. “We have no rental carts, no rental clubs, no rental pull carts either.”

Medicine Hat Golf & Country Club, Cottonwood Coulee Golf Course, Connaught Golf Club, and Riverview Golf Course in Redcliff are among the other local courses still unable to open.

According to Cottonwood general manager Mac Baker, the wintry weather hasn’t put local courses on any sort of fast-approaching deadline.

“With the snow on the ground we’re not in a position to open anyways right now,” said Baker. “So, we’ve definitely been thinking about it and been trying to come up with plans for a bunch of different scenarios. As of this moment, it hasn’t affected a whole lot of what we do on a day-to-day basis.”

For MHGCC, their biggest challenge will come in memberships as they’ve seen an 85 percent drop in March revenue compared to the previous year.

“We’re just not seeing the members come in to purchase their membership because they’re worried when the golf season is going to start,” said general manager Cam Jacques. “Is it going to start in May, June, July? So, we probably won’t have many members this year just because of the uncertainty.”

Losing close to 40 events such as weddings and tournaments already, Jacques is hoping for a late April or early May opening for the northeast course.

Connaught Golf Club is planning for the latest opening to its season in the last 15 years and will be looking to the provincial government for further direction.

A sentiment that many local courses are sharing, as golf clubs were not placed in the non-essential business closure category by the province.

Baker said he doesn’t have a start date lined up with little direction from the province so far, but is running under the assumption they’ll be able to get their season off the ground.

“There’s so many different businesses, so many different industries that are all kind of looking for the same thing,” said Baker. “At this point, I think golf courses have maybe been put on the back burner a little bit because we’re not in a position in almost all of Alberta to quite open yet.”

Most of the general managers and owners CHAT News spoke to on Monday were optimistic the season will begin, however were less certain on if the Alberta government would pull the pin at some point.

If they do get the go ahead from the provincial level, Jacques added it will be tough to immediately throw open the doors.

“If we are allowed to open up we still need five, six, seven days before we can groom the golf course and get food in the kitchen if we open that,” said Jacques. “Just from a golf course standpoint, we need a week heads up notice to see if we can continue to open up our facilities.”