Last week two of the Wichita City Public Golf Courses opened two of their courses: Auburn Hills Golf Course and MacDonald Golf Course. They were originally closed on March 25 but the city deemed them essential business.
To be open, they put out a list of safety guidelines to make sure they had a commitment to the community’s safety.
As someone who preaches “experiencing what Wichita has to offer”, I felt it was my duty to go check out the golf courses and see what golfers could expect on their visit. By no means am I a hot shot golfer, but I do enjoy getting out with my buddies to play a round.
We stopped by MacDonald Golf Course earlier in the week and here’s what to expect.
When you arrive, only one golfer is allowed in the clubhouse at a time. No concession or merchandise sales were allowed not were cash payments. Only credit and debit cards were allowed. I had a gift card and that wasn’t even allowed either.
The clubhouse restrooms were also shut down as were every porta potty and restroom on the course. Those were locked up when I went. So if you have to golf, you have two ways to relieve yourself: 1.) Wear adult diapers or 2.) Get creative like the animals……..
Also, no cart rentals were allowed. Walking was the only option but with nice weather earlier this week, it was a beautiful day to walk.
What’s nice was the tee times were spread out to every twenty minutes so there wasn’t a group visibly behind us or ahead of us. My group of three were able to walk the wide-open course. I’ve seen parks, neighborhood streets and parking lots more crowded than the golf course.
As for the actual golf, they made plenty of changes to make sure there was limited to zero touching of anything. No scorecards or pencils were given out, but we used a phone app to keep our score. There were also no ball washers, bunker rakes, benches, bag stands, or drinking fountains on the course; not even a single trash can to be found which we thought was odd. Be sure to pack PLENTY of water!
The cups on the green were also modified to eliminate the need to remove the ball from the hole. Basically there was a PVC pipe sticking out. We were told as long as you hit the pipe that counted. We thought it was a bit odd but it also probably saved 3-4 strokes off our scores.
I totally get the big debate on whether golf courses should be open. While I do agree that golf really isn’t essential, I felt more safe on the golf course than going to 99% of the other places I’ve been to. As mentioned earlier, we’ve been on many family walks around the neighborhood and that’s more crowded than my visit to the golf course.
Nothing I experienced would keep me from golfing again….. well except my horrible slice that was driving me nuts.
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