Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic and the government issued stay at home quarantine order, restaurants, stores and other important social activity places have been shut down. Fortunately for golfers, golf courses have remained open through these scary times. But with courses staying open comes a lot of altercations. Many changes have been made to the club house, booking a tee time, food, the course and socializing. One of these courses being Persimmon Woods Golf Club in Weldon Springs, Missouri.

At Persimmon Woods the changes they have made in order to remain open have started with the club house. There are no more than two people in the club house at a time, and you are only allowed inside if you are purchasing a beverage or using the restrooms. As for making tee times, Persimmon Woods has spaced out each tee time by 12 minutes rather than the usual 8 minutes. The reason for this is so there is no traffic on the course so they can avoid gatherings of four people or more on a tee box.

The changes that have been made to the course include flagsticks, golf cups, ball cleaners, tees on tee boxes and divot repair boxes. Usually there are boxes of sand that you may use to repair divots made in the fairway. As for tee boxes you’re allowed to pick up your own tee’s after hitting your drive. With picking up other peoples tee’s you run the risk of contracting bacteria from the player that had touched it before. As for the greens and the golf cups, they have been raised 2 inches above the green. If your ball makes contact with the cup then the ball is considered holed. This keeps people from touching the hole and making it safer to play. The flagstick is left in the hole at all times to prevent any kind of cross contamination.

Golf courses have been deemed essential through these tough times for many reasons. Players and members of courses have been able to stay social while also abiding social distancing guidelines. Courses have also remained open through Mondays which has been a big change. Courses used to close on Mondays for maintenance, but with the pandemic courses have realized how important golf is to everybody and helping people get away.