Golfers tee off at Riverview Golf Club on Oct. 3, 2022. (Photo Courtesy Chris Brown)

By Chris Brown

Local golfers can tee up for a few more weeks

Oct 3, 2022 | 5:07 PM

REDCLIFF, AB – The usual slow transition from summer to winter is giving local golfers plenty of time to keep swinging in our area.

Club managers and pro shop staff are keeping an eye on the weather forecasts and say there still about two and maybe even three weeks of golf weather ahead.

“It’s Oct. 3 and it’s still looking just gorgeous out here. We are anticipating closing on the 16th [of October],” said Jaubron Widdis, manager of Redcliff’s Riverview Golf Club. “If the weather’s absolutely phenomenal we will push that back one week. Although we will be closing slightly earlier than usual this year because we’re tarping all of our greens and then just in case there’s any hiccups with that we want to give ourselves a little bit of a cushion to make sure everything rolls off smoothly with that tarping.”

Widdis says it’s still as busy as can be on Saturdays and Sundays and they have the good problem of running out of carts every weekend.

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It’s quite a turnaround for Riverview, which is only a few years removed from near financial ruin. A $315,000 loan from the Town of Redcliff helped keep them afloat in 2019, along with a better-than-expected season on the links.

Widdis says the course saw a bump in membership and non-members playing in 2020 and has been able to maintain and even grow.

“Our membership is still growing. Other than those two months [in the spring] where the weather didn’t co-operate quite as much, we’ve surpassed our rounds played each month since then. When the weather’s co-operating it’s been just phenomenal,” he said.

All other courses in the area are looking at mid to late October closing dates, but they could always change depending on the weather.