On this first morning of spring, the season of new beginnings, opening day at Bethpage Green was slowed by a frost delay. It was a fitting way to follow a winter season that was largely snowed out.
The cold thaw will do little to dampen local golf enthusiasm though, or the prospects for 2021. The rush on tee times that became one of the main storylines in the pandemic-affected Long Island golf season of 2020 is likely to carry over through this year, Newsday golf writer Jeff Williams said in a St. Patrick's Day column, as more and more courses begin to shake off the winter freeze. Harbor Links also reopened on Saturday, joining courses like Timber Point and Cherry Creek Woods that raised the curtain on 2021 last week.
And with sunny skies and temps projected in the 50s and 60s this week, expect a preview of this spring and summer's run on reservations. Pent-up demand helped one Suffolk County course send out 150 players as far back as a sunny, freshly snow-thawed March 3.
"Tee sheets filled up in an instant, a week in advance or more," Williams said of 2020. "And that trend isn't showing any signs of slowing down."
It's not just the push for golf itself that is driving demand for reservations. "Tee times are like gold," Sunken Meadow head pro Judy Alvarez told Golf On Long Island in the fall, because most courses are still not allowing walk-up play amid the focus on pandemic safety. Just about everyone needs a reservation to get onto any local first tee. Players accustomed to dropping by a nearby course to join a group, or who might decide to sneak in nine holes one afternoon on a whim, are now at a severe disadvantage.
Courses like the nine-hole Nassau County munis at North Woodmere, Bay Park, Cantiague and Christopher Morley are offering tee times for the first time ever, and without walk-up play, the difference is clear. On a warm weekend last November, every tee time at North Woodmere was booked in advance from Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon. "Normally on a nice fall Saturday like this I'd come down here at 9:00 and get on after a little wait," said one Woodmere golfer. "Today I can't get out."
As of noon today (Saturday), a search for Sunday tee times turns up almost nothing for twosomes at North Woodmere and Cantiague. (The other two courses are still closed for winter.) Singles can find three slots in total before 2 p.m.
At Cedars Golf Club in Cutchogue, the neighborhood nine-hole course transitioned in 2020 from a fully walk-up facility to prepaid tee times. "We expect to keep the tee-time system going forward based on positive feedback from customers," said Cedars co-owner Tim McManus, who added indoor simulator play at Cedars was booked every weekend this winter.
The Golf Club at Middle Bay still has some time before the course opens on April 1, but the tee sheets are filling fast. "We have a very limited number of tee times available for sale on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays," said golf director Ronnie Wright.
Once on the course though, golfers should find the experience well worth the fight for their spot on tee. Pine Hills golf director Jimmy Conway told Newsday that faster rounds were one of the byproducts of pandemic-era golf in 2020.
"For the first time we saw four-hour rounds being played on weekends. That brought joy to a lot of people’s games," Conway said. "A tee time on Saturday wasn’t so bad anymore."
