To answer the most asked question about COVID, while there are many counties in California that are now recommending that all persons wear face coverings when indoors, there is only one that is mandating the use of masks when indoors – Los Angeles County.
To answer another oft-asked question, while there is nothing in the state protocols that proscribe any on-course activity that was allowed pre-COVID, individual facilities and clubs are within their rights to prohibit a practice they are not yet comfortable reinstituting.
Finally, to the question given the potency of the Delta variant, when can we expect things to go back to normal – i.e., life as it was pre-Covid?
First, you need to remember that viruses like the flu and COVID are endemic; that is, their susceptibility to mutation makes it all but impossible to completely eliminate them. Vaccines can and routinely do prevent them and when unable to prevent, substantially mitigate their effects. That is exactly what is occurring now with the Delta variant – a few breakthrough infections that cause negligible problems for those infected but allow for continued spread to the unvaccinated, which in turn keeps the variant alive and well.
Second, and more on point to the last question, the results of a 2.7% margin of error poll in yesterday’s USA Today provides the best answer. The July 13-15 survey of 1,715 adults indicates that 37% of unvaccinated respondents believe the vaccine represents a greater risk than COVID, just shy of 35% say they are not sure, and 29% say getting COVID is riskier than getting the vaccine.
Conclusion: COVID isn’t going away any time soon, any more than influenza has gone away; however, with so many having been vaccinated and so many of the previously infected having developed short-term immunity, the chances of anything about the play of golf being affected is extraordinarily unlikely when you consider that even Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer has indicated in a very recent New York Times interview that circumstances would have to be “extraordinary” for her to even consider closing concert and other large gathering venues based on what is unfolding with respect to the Delta variant. Golf in the wide-open spaces of fairways, driving ranges, and practice greens isn’t in jeopardy.
Are you interested in becoming an advocate for golf in California? The CGCOA is seeking amateur golfers who are passionate about protecting the game of golf and promoting public policies that enable golf to flourish in California. Take the next step to becoming an advocate for golf by completing the attached Golf is Good Ambassador Application.
Read More →FORE - The magazine of the SCGA. Find archived Public Affairs articles on the website of the SCGA's award winning quarterly publication.
Read More →Charles Dickens’ famous opening of “A Tale of Two Cities” comes to mind as a good descriptor of where California’s water situation and golf’s place in it stands after back-to-back record precipitation years: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...".
Read More →Four Los Angeles City Council members introduced a motion yesterday that seeks to crack down on what the motion describes as “black-market tee time brokers” who book and resell city golf course tee times for profit.
Read More →When introduced by Assembly Member Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) February 16, AB 3192 contained a provision that would have banned the use of all nonorganic pesticides and fertilizers on golf resorts in California’s Coastal Zone.
Read More →A cautionary tale from semi-rural Santa Barbara County to remind you that the pressure to repurpose golf courses is not just a phenomenon in California’s densely packed urban cores.
Read More →The National Golf Course Owners Association’s (NGCOA) Harvey Silverman may have characterized the City of Los Angeles’ uncommonly quick reaction to intense media scrutiny (five separate Los Angeles Times stories including a Sunday lead editorial) of the depredations of tee time brokering with his quip in the organization’s “Golf Business Weekly” about the city having reacted “faster than fixing potholes.”
Read More →Every year there seems to be one bill filed in one house of the California Legislature that keeps the California golf community up at night.
Read More →Here's the difference this last week made, and it’s a difference not just in terms of the alacrity with which we can expect the major municipal golf systems to begin implementing mitigations, but also in terms of what the week means in terms of disabusing all notions of golf somehow being underutilized and golfers not as passionate about the object of their affection as others are about theirs.
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