Covid golf course closures In AZ

[DaveGoodrich]

My SoCal men's club is having an event in early June at two courses in Arizona, near Laughlin (El Rio and Los Lagos). Neither of their websites show any info regarding Covid, and both courses are currently showing available tee times. So it seems we are still good to go. Anybody have any specific info on these courses? Thanks,

[lvlites]

They are both on the Arizona side of the border. If things stay the same you are good to go. Good Luck! Both courses have been closed and then reopened during the last recession. Built for projected housing areas that hit the skids, then building resumed. I've played El Rio. Nice course but I've heard Los Lagos is the better of the two.

[Bonneville85308]

I believe it. At some of the retirement community courses in the NW valley here in Phoenix within the last few days I've seen groups of 8+ guys all park their carts right next to each other in a "huddle" in the parking lot after the round where they sit, talk, and drink beer for an hour, basically to get around the fact that the course closed the indoor restaurant seating and took away all the chairs and benches outside the clubhouse where they would usually congregate post-round. My unofficial opinion is that this is one part of the reason why the SCW courses announced they are closing on April 14, since a lot of the clientele refuses to comply with commonsense social distancing while on course property. This negates everything the course does with raised cups, no ballwashers, no rental carts or clubs, no rakes, etc.

[lvlites]

So the answer is to punish the golfers following the guidelines?

[cbbaron]

Unfortunately that is the way it goes

[Bonneville85308]

What other answer is there? How do you segregate between the guideline followers and the non-followers? The course operator has no way to anticipate in advance which customers will follow the guidelines and which won't. Either you leave the course open and have a segment of the customers put themselves and others at risk, or close it down and take the course out of the equation for the spread of the virus. The operator could say at check-in "we require you to follow these guidelines in order to play our course" and then Joe Potbelly pulls the flagstick on the first green anyway. I've seen it happen.

I've played many rounds in the last few weeks, and in all of them I followed the guidelines to the best of my ability; played alone, walked, didn't touch anything I didn't bring with me, paid in advance over the phone or online, got in my car and left right after the round, etc. However, the course operator had no idea whether I was going to do that, or go around licking flagsticks.

I'd like all courses to be able to remain open and would love to see all golfers observing appropriate social distancing guidelines. Unfortunately we've had some local courses that had made zero changes as recent as last week (normal cups, rakes still there, 8 minute tee times, no solo rider carts) and a lot of golfers who won't get with the guidelines. I admit up until maybe two weeks ago I was either in denial or felt the whole COVID-19 situation was overblown by the media to attack a certain politician, but I am now taking it very seriously now given the recent numbers. I will continue to play, but only if I can ensure that I am able to follow the guidelines; walking, playing alone on a not-busy course, etc.

 

[lvlites]

Well you won't play in Nevada. The governor took his ball and ran home.

[DaveGoodrich]

Thanks. I am really looking forward to getting back on the course. Everything closed here in SoCal.

[az2au]

One of my clubs sent a note today indicating that state inspectors are starting to visit courses and that it may lead to our courses closing if they don’t feel like the people playing can follow the rules.

[cbbaron]

When I was there last week was surprised they allowed shared carts

[puttnforthe8]

City of Phoenix is meeting tomorrow to discuss closing city courses.

[OspreyCI]

Don’t say that... I have a teen time Sunday at Ken Mac.

[ibradley]

Which city?

[az2au]

Phoenix which includes the whole metro area I assume, e.g., Dobson Ranch. Note: this is my assumption so please correct if wrong.

[puttnforthe8]

Phoenix - correct; it now looks like it will be discussed on the 13th in the next city council meeting.

[cbbaron]

Gallego doesn't want the courses open so I would say they will close

[ibradley]

I think Phoenix can close their city owned courses but cannot change the state order which keeps private courses open. On another note, I think lost in the entire debate of whether to close or remain open is the economic harm done to course owners.

[az2au]

Phoenix can definitely close the municipal courses as they are the operator. As I understand it, Doucey's order only exempts courses from being forced to close. No business is required to stay open of course.
Much like the federal government only has so much power in telling the states what they can do, the same goes for cities with local government but line is blurrier in this type of situation. Thus, whether Phoenix can force privately owned public courses or private courses to close within the city limits is not clear to me. I think the answer is that an individual city could force courses to stop operating within the city limits but I'm not positive. My understanding is that in matters such as these "city>county>state>federal government" via ordinances but that a public health issue could be mandated by the state. Therefore, if the state ordered the business shut down due to health reasons, the city couldn't override the other way.
Note: I'm not a lawyer, didn't read the AZ state constitution and my understanding is based on reading several documents in the last few weeks trying to determine the same thing but no actual knowledge. Anyone with actual facts instead of "understanding" based on curiosity reading should correct me :)
Either way, as I understood @puttnforthe8 this is about the munis and not privately owned public courses or private clubs.

[MaxBuck]

Just like kindergarten: "The actions of the few spoil it for the many."

[Bonneville85308]

If they want to remain open they should space out the tee times more, at least in the mornings. The City courses are packed like usual and there are way too many people milling around the outside of the clubhouse, the practice green, parking lot, stacked up on the tee boxes waiting, etc. I played Cave Creek within the last week and decided to scratch the city courses off my list until the COVID-19 situation is over, just way too many people to maintain safe social distancing with a full tee sheet of 8-minute tee times, so I've taken my business to less crowded courses for now.

[jimbonecrusher]

That's because Sisolak is a corrupt moron. Nothing like mass punishment. Las Vegas use to be a great place to live except for the expensive green fees. That place has been turned into a garbage pit. The state is losing massive amounts of money because of Sisolak's lack of ability to make sounds decisions.

[jimbonecrusher]

Are you surprised? Kate Gallego is a moron and just trying to counter absolutely anything that Ducey is doing to keep the entire state from going stir crazy and bankrupt.

Keeping everything closed is all about a power grab.

Many elected politicians could care less that the courses must still spend money to keep the courses in an operational condition, even if they are not getting play. It would cost a course a huge amount of cash to bring a course back to playing condition if they were to lock the doors and not have the maintenance crew working.

Maricopa County has has a total of 2636 positive cases out of over 4.485 million people that live there. That is an infection rate of .05%. Of the 5064 cases in Arizona, only 187 have resulted in death with 75 of those in Maricopa County. That is a 3.7% mortality rate for the state and a 2.8% mortality rate for the county.

I think we are pretty safe. Don't let numbers skew your fear that the elected officials are trying to exploit.

Golf is pretty safe, and the actions courses are taking are doing quite well.

[jimbonecrusher]

Since I sit in daily briefings on this subject I wanted to pass on two websites for you to look at in case you are curious or love number crunching.

Below is the first link which is a by zip code, interactive map that will show you the cases in each zip code within the state. What is awesome about this map is that you can zoom in to the street level, in case you don't know a zip code for a specific area. ArcGIS Dashboards

This link is the the AZ Department of Health Services COVID-19 page that will show you the stat by county. AZDHS | COVID-19 Dashboards

[lvlites]

Sun City West reopening all courses May 4

[fore_life]

Viewpoint still closed with no update :(

[avguy]

The demographic of players in the winter mos. there are 99% in the 55-80 range as it is a retirement resort. Me thinks some staff member possibly got sick requiring at least a 14-day quarantine. This is when I really looked forward to my Mondays at VP for $10 all summer as I live about 3-4 mi. away from it. It even has a nice range.

Some snowbirds are actually going to be stranded in AZ now with the health crisis. Canadians were called back due to border restrictions from their own country last month. The ones that fly back to Minn/IA/ND/WA/WI/ILL cannot due to airlines industry severely limited and scary for at-risk. They worry about driving back on two-day trips cuz they don't know if any decent hotels are open going north on their trips.

 

[fore_life]

I hope everyone up there is ok, I’ve had a range membership there for a few years now and really enjoy talking to the staff.

[Reif]

Seems to me the only people the eight guys sitting around after the round are jeopardizing are themselves.

[cbbaron]

Until one of them coughs on you next day

[az2au]

And everyone else they come in contact with after? Those people don't get to make that choice.