MEMO TO LA COUNTY GOLFERS, GOLF CLUBS AND HIGH SCHOOLS (Exceptions:  Long Beach & Pasadena)

You are no doubt aware that high school sports, including contact sports like football, have been resumed across the county in which you live. You are no doubt aware that LA County moves from the “Purple Tier” to the “Red Tier” Monday. The chart below explains in real-life terms what that means for life in general and in some respects such as indoor dining and indoor shopping, what it means for certain activities at your local golf course or club.

For golf, two health orders apply, the massive “Safer at Home” order just revised to reflect the county’s move from the “Purple Tier” to the “Red Tier” and the “Youth/Adult Sports Leagues” order issued February 26 and updated yesterday (effective Monday).

The chart above details the key elements of the revised “Safer at Home” order. Click here to read the 3/15 “Youth/Adult Sports Leagues” order as it has been slightly amended effective Monday. Among those “slight” amendments is the following language:

“Youth and Adult Recreational Sports operators, coaches, and participants for golf and tennis must also refer to the County’s Golf Course and Tennis Courts protocols, which are specific to those Recreational Sports.”

Why golf and tennis and only golf and tennis? That’s a good question with multiple possible answers. LA County Public Health has for two weeks been informing SCGA, LA County Parks & Recreation, media, and inquiring individual golfers that an update of the “Golf Appendix” to align it with the “Youth/Adult Sports Leagues” order is “imminent” – an order that would necessarily enable a whole host of previously proscribed activities such as high school golf team competitions, club events, and putting/chipping greens. So, we are going to assume that the most likely answer is that DPH had intended to have already performed that update, but has been so overburdened with the work associated with moving from the “Purple” to the “Red” Tier that they just haven’t been able to get around to it.

Remember, precisely because golf and tennis are such safe activities and thus long permitted, they have long had their own separate enabling “Appendices,” and while San Diego and other large Southern California counties have simply jettisoned their separate appendices in favor of having golf hew to the generic state and local orders, for whatever reason Los Angeles County has elected not to do that. Long Beach has also kept its separate golf appendix, albeit Long Beach did manage to update it in a timely manner. We shared that document with you a couple of days ago but click here if you’d like to review its contents again. Long Beach did a good job with it.

So, if you’re flummoxed by the disconnect between the ability to dine, shop, or even use a gym indoors at your golf club/course and the inability to putt, chip, play in consecutive tee times, or host high school golf matches – you are not alone. Updating the “Golf Appendix” to bring it into alignment with all other active health orders is not a particularly complicated task. Los Angeles County Parks & Recreation long ago developed the required language. Long Beach just adopted a solid protocol. With any luck, and a little cooperation from Los Angeles County Public Health, we won’t be flummoxed much longer.

For those of you who may think that SCGA has not been all over this since the moment the 2/26 “Youth/Adult Sports Leagues” order was issued, please know otherwise. For those of you who may think that SCGA has not directly contacted LA County Public Health and LA County Board Offices on multiple occasions about all of this, please know otherwise.

It is our fondest hope that our next update will be along the lines of the Long Beach update we put out a couple of days ago – the report of a solid effort to align LA County golf with the spirit and letter of all other extant health orders. But as “hope” is not a strategy, we’ll persist until reality matches the promises of LA County Public Health and the expectations of a golf community that amount to nothing more than a plea for equitable consideration.