One of the few things that I still enjoy on Facebook is the “Memories” feature, where your past posts from this day can be perused. February is usually full of pictures from my trips to Hawaii. March is loaded up with photos from Florida vacations or our trip to the Bahamas and plenty of exclamations pertaining to Badgers Basketball exploits in the NCAA Tournament.
Well, this week’s memories are reminding me that two years ago the powers that be (and still are) in Wisconsin decided that playing the sport of golf was such a threat to public health and safety that it needed to be banned. Wisconsin was one of just 11-states in the US that decided it was too risky to engage in an outdoor activity that features almost no direct physical contact. It was the first government decree barring people from playing the sport since King James II in 1457 forbade the people of Scotland from playing their favorite game because it took away from archery practice–which was needed for national defense.
In my Facebook post, I took a Google Earth screenshot of Reid Municipal Golf Course in Appleton and wrote that “I am allowed to walk around this piece of property with my wife. I can play fetch with a dog on this property. But if I carry a bag of clubs and hit a ball on this site I am breaking the law.”
It was, of course, among the myriad of “emergency orders” made in the early days of the pandemic without much thought and with zero information on the actual risk posed to the public. Every day I seethed as I drove by parks where disc golfers were flinging their Frisbees and touching the baskets and getting to play their game–while my clubs sat gathering dust. But for the better part of a month, courses sat idle–until the Governor finally acquiesced and allowed play to resume–with ludicrous restrictions.
Golf played along with the charade for awhile. You weren’t allowed to pull the flag out of the cup to putt–even though the flagsticks sit in the sun and rain and wind all day, and no one has ever produced a single case of someone contracting any disease from touching one. There were no ball-washers–even though they are out in the elements all day and night–and there were no rakes for the bunkers (a dream come true for some of the guys who are out early every day at Reid). Courses put plastic lids or cut up pieces of pool noodles in their cups so the ball would stay around ground level to pick out of the hole. We even played places that had raised cups and if you hit it, you were considered to have holed your putt. There were no water coolers, bubblers, or even beverage carts allowed on the courses. Two people were not allowed to ride together on motorized carts. Golfers were instructed to forego the traditional post-round handshake on 18 (my buddies and I adopted the Japanese deep bow of respect to complete our rounds).
Fortunately, that idiocy lasted for just one season. By the spring of 2021, you could pull the flag again, cart girls were back out cruising the courses, rakes sat unused by the guys getting out early at Reid, and you could give your buddies a bro-hug for breaking 80. And not coincidentally, golf experienced the biggest year in terms of rounds played, revenue generated, and equipment sold that it had seen in decades. Although I’m sure those paralyzed by fear seethed every time they drove by a course to see people enjoying an activity that they believed was such “high risk” that it had to be made illegal.
By the way, King James II was killed by an exploding cannon during a castle siege just a few years after issuing his ban on golf–which was eventually repealed in 1502. Wisconsin golfers don’t have to be that extreme to exact their revenge on those that tried to take our game away from us two years ago.
