Pinehurst Institutes Safety Measures So Guests Can Still Tee It Up

With just a few tweaks and simple-to-implement precautions, golf can be played safely in the middle of this pandemic. While the spread of COVID-19 has cancelled many facets of daily American life, at Pinehurst, in the heart of the North Carolina Sandhills, golf plays through while the restaurants and bars are temporarily shuttered.

“I was supposed to play No. 4 yesterday.  There were 90 people on the tee sheet and 150 today. So, people are still playing,” explains Phil Werz, president and CEO of the Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Currently all nine golf courses are open with golfers encouraged to observe social distancing practices such as standing at least six feet apart. “Touchpoints” are also minimized with golfers told to leave the flagstick in and to smooth bunkers with their feet instead of a rake.

“I was at the Cradle Course yesterday with a member to shoot a Golf & Social Distancing video,” adds Werz. “I was wearing a glove while I putted and I typically don’t. But I used sanitizer all the time, like every hole. I picked the ball out of the hole with my glove using two fingers and tried not to touch the flagstick.”

Golfers in carts are instructed to ride solo, so if there are four players in a group then each is given their own personal cart. The vehicles are also wiped down and disinfected between rounds and the steering wheels are sanitized.

“Just continually sanitize every three or four holes is what we recommend,” advises Wertz.

Post round etiquette in the time of the novel coronavirus also gets a rewrite. The traditional handshake is replaced with a tip of the cap or perhaps a fist pump into the air if players want to get more creative. As the bars are closed, you’re going to need to take a mulligan on that 19^th hole drink.

When the coronavirus passes, whenever that may be, the Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen Area CVB plans to focus their energy targeting the markets within driving distance.

“Our thought is that the airlines are going to take so long to ramp back up, especially internationally” explains Werz. “Our focus is going to be on a five-hour radius, Atlanta to D.C., really hitting that five-hour drive market to get them back here quickly because as much as people have been sheltered and isolated, they’re going to want to get out.”

“We feel there’s going to be a quick turnaround and we are going to hit that hard from a marketing and messaging standpoint as soon as we get free and clear.”

Ripple Effect

“Everything was normal up until three weeks ago,” explains Greg Austin, owner of trip packager AME Golf who does a lot of Pinehurst booking business. Golf trips in and around the Masters are very popular, especially among his international clientele. The postponement of golf’s signature event compounded with government-imposed travel restrictions threw a monkey wrench into many trip plans.

“As of last Monday, the onslaught happened. Everybody still wants to come but there is just so much uncertainty which is the problem,” says Austin, who was golf pro at Pinehurst for ten years. He left to start an events and travel business in 1999 and then seven quarters in experienced September 11^th and also contended with the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 so he has experience weathering downturns.

“It’s bad but it always comes back,” says Austin who has seen 90% of bookings in March and April cancelled and the malaise is starting to creep into May.

“We’re trying not to call them cancellations, we’re trying to call them postponements,” he adds as many clients are looking to reschedule their trips. On the bright side there are diehards still coming.

“I’ve got four guys driving down [to Pinehurst] from Buffalo right now that are going to be here for the weekend, assuming the governor doesn’t close all golf courses.”