CALGARY -- At the Links Of Glen Eagles in Cochrane, the phone hasn’t stopped ringing since Alberta Premier Jason Kenney's Thursday anouncement that gave the green light for golf courses to open.
Eager golfers want to book their tee time so they can search for those elusive birdies.
Glen Eagles is part of the Play Golf Calgary group that also includes Serenity, Blue Devil and Heather Glen. Slade King is the C.O.O. Of Play Golf Calgary and he said all of their courses will open Saturday.
“It was exciting," he said, of Kenney's announcement. "We never really expected the date to come that quickly - to be (allowed to) open within two days. We’ve been prepping for a long time so we’re ready, but there’s still so many last-minute details to kind of operate in the new (pandemic) world. But we’re ready to go.”
Not all golf course will be ready to go on the weekend. In fact, the majority won’t open up until next week..
At Lynx Ridge, there’s still plenty of work to do. They have to take care of some flooding on cart paths and remove their tarps. More importantly, they want to make sure everything is safe.
Director of Golf Matt Kirlin said they will open some time next week.
“Most important is the safety of our staff and members, so that does take some time to implement," he said. "Other than that, we’re aiming for Monday to Wednesday,”
“Somewhere in there we’ll be confident and ready to go with tee times starting early in the morning. The staff are excited to start answering the phones.”
Cup Caddie
Victor Beda owns Ninedesigns.net just outside of Cochrane and he’s been busy as well. Play Golf Calgary approached him about coming up with a device so golfers wouldn’t touch the flag or grab their golf ball out of the hole.
He came up with the Cup Caddie and he’s been ramping up production and working some long hours.
Beda said there’s a lot of demand for the product. Already 15 courses have put in orders.
“You know like everywhere else in the world we’ve all been in lockdown here and trying to figure out what to do to help the golf courses,” he told CTV.
‘So we came up with this idea to lift balls out of the cup. It’s one of the things they came to us with: a problem that they needed to solve in order to open up.”
And opening up, whether it’s Saturday or next week, has Calgary golfers jumping for joy.
