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Are you ok with getting paired with others right now?

I am fine with it i guess, just as long as everyone is following the guidelines.
 
I will pair up. Lots of room on the golf course.
 
I'm in the higher risk age group but I'd still be OK pairing up. Just have to use a little bit of common sense. Don't get close, don't touch the same things, either walk or ride solo etc... I'm usually in a group but I've played a couple rounds solo recently (the course was almost empty due to weather). I wouldn't expect to be granted the privilege of playing solo on a nice day though. With available tee times cut in half and so many people at home now those fewer tee times are in high demand. I know singles are going out on nice days, too many of them IMO. Courses just won't risk any potential blow back from those singles who ask for that privilege. Not something I personally agree with, but there are those who'll take advantage. The course loses needed revenue and the parade of singles reeks havoc on pace as many also feel entitled to blow through group after group. If the courses just said 'you're free to play as a single, you don't get a tee time though, and you're expected to either skip holes, or stay well back, when you catch groups' I'd feel different about it.
 
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jdtox said:
I know courses are probably starving for money but in the interest of safety I think this is how it should be. If you book a tee time thats yours for 1-4 golfers, end of story.
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I agree and I appreciate them doing that although one course isn't booking singles. Stinks if you don't have someone to play with
 
I love golf, but getting paired with strangers a few times over the years has made me realize that I love golf with friends. I also love friends that gamble a little bit. Playing "just to play", especially with strangers, isn't something I relish. I'd rather just practice.
 
jdtox said:
Well we are walking only here per the governor which I'm totally fine with, I'm just not sure I want to be paired with others right now so I'll wait till I can play with a friend or with people I know.
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Curious which courses these are so I can avoid for the time being
 
I have no problem pairing up as long as they keep letting us have single carts in AZ
 
When was the last time you got that close to a stranger at a course, other than to shake hands hello and after the round? Nobody is going to think any less of someone these days. Issue even now, with some courses open is actually getting a slot as a single. This upcoming weekend is solid already. Not a single slot available. As long as people aren’t being asshats, I’d be out there in a second.
 
i don't generally like to get paired with strangers when there is no pandemic so definitely not now
 
Yes.
 
jdtox said:
I know courses are probably starving for money but in the interest of safety I think this is how it should be. If you book a tee time thats yours for 1-4 golfers, end of story.
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Would you then be willing to pay for 4 to play as a single? If so, I'd agree.

The interest of safety is very much a personal calculation. It's not incumbent upon the course to accommodate the most cautious among us.

I'm not trying to be combative, I applaud caution. Always, especially now. But assuming a golf course should turn out only singles as a matter of practice due to an abundance of caution is not reasonable.

If that were deemed necessary then they shouldn't be open in the first place. And if it were deemed necessary then those desiring to play should maybe think it better to not.

Which brings us back to the very beginning.

Personal choice, not professional obligation.
 
Wouldn’t bother me. Glad to pair up.

The idea of a stranger bringing greater infection risk doesn’t make sense to me. The virus likes my friends too.

We are limited to twosomes here in IL so it should be relatively easy to keep some distance between us as long as I remain vigilant about it. I don’t see why it matters whether the person is a friend or a rando.
 
Well I’ll put this to the test shortly. Courses opening 5/1 in PA.
 
WMac19 said:
Would you then be willing to pay for 4 to play as a single? If so, I'd agree.

The interest of safety is very much a personal calculation. It's not incumbent upon the course to accommodate the most cautious among us.

I'm not trying to be combative, I applaud caution. Always, especially now. But assuming a golf course should turn out only singles as a matter of practice due to an abundance of caution is not reasonable.

If that were deemed necessary then they shouldn't be open in the first place. And if it were deemed necessary then those desiring to play should maybe think it better to not.

Which brings us back to the very beginning.

Personal choice, not professional obligation.
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No I'm not paying for 4 as a single and don't get me wrong I'm not saying this is the way it should always be but in these uncertain times I don't think its completely unreasonable. In Michigan we were just given the ability to golf 4 days ago so golf courses weren't even allowed to be open. People are going to the courses in droves. We are not allowed to even have electric carts at all not even one person at a time, everyone must walk. All I'm saying before some idiot(s) wrecks it for everyone, in the interest of caution, golf courses should be more careful. All its going to take is for someone to report someone doing something stupid and then we are back to no golf. Which is not acceptable.
 
I’d be good with it and would be more concerned about the pace of play of a stranger as all but one of my 4 rounds last week took 2:50 or less. I keep my distance on the course and I have no assurances that a stranger is any safer than one of my regular golf buddies. All indications are that a lot more people have been exposed than previously thought - by a factor of 20 to 50 times the current confirmed case numbers. That makes the death rate from this o.5% or less. I saw yesterday that 99.6% of the deaths in NYC had at least one preexisting condition that made them higher risk and luckily none in my family has any preexisting condition.

Another factor in me being OK with it is the cases are super low around here. Most of my golf is being played in a rural area where there are only a total of 31 confirmed cases total in the area and that includes the surrounding 10 counties. The county I’m in has 4 confirmed cases so far and two of those were in the same nursing home.
 
If we can social-distance in a supermarket, then we should be able to do it on a golf course.

Much easier for us in the UK, as we rarely use a cart, so we can all walk up a fairway 6ft apart without issue.
 
I wouldn't be ok with playing right now.
It's pretty bad up here.

If I played with a stranger, that would be two people with bad judgement endangering one another.

On a happier note, our surgical gloves, masks, and oral thermometers all arrived from Amazon.
I hate Amazon, but they did deliver the goods.
 
Never had any issues being paired up with new people before, I can't see any difference now although the circumstances are way different now.
 
The course I normally play will still allow singles to go out, so this is not a big deal for me, but if they want to pair people up for pace of play I'm ok with it. I don't have to touch any of the players I am playing with and as long as I am taking precautions, it's a non issue for me.
 
I have no issues at all with getting paired up with anyone. I'm not going to stand or walk right beside them. I normally never would.
 
If you aren't comfortable pairing up with strangers at the moment, it's unlikely ANY course will let you go it alone (your location may differ). With what I'm guessing is around only 20% of my local courses open at all, they are fully booked well in advance. So obviously, the amount of people who ARE willing to get out vastly outnumber those who don't. And just because most are spreading times out, don't think even if you can get out as a single, you are entitled to play through everyone like a speeder in the fast lane. They're spreading everyone out for a reason.
 
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I want to play really bad now that golf opened up here in PA, but as much as I want to play, I am not playing with strangers at this point.

So, since my group wasn't into playing yet due to the virus, I am going to wait till I can go out by myself on a weekday next week.

By the way, my golf course book all their weekend tee times (15 mins apart) in less than 10 mins. They started at 12 noon and the weekend was booked in full by 12:10pm.
 
RayG said:
If you aren't comfortable pairing up with strangers at the moment, it's unlikely ANY course will let you go it alone (your location may differ). With what I'm guessing is around only 20% of my local courses open at all, they are fully booked well in advance. So obviously, the amount of people who ARE willing to get out vastly outnumber those who don't. And just because most are spreading times out, don't think even if you can get out as a single, you are entitled to play through everyone like a speeder in the fast lane. They're spreading everyone out for a reason.
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If I was out as a single I would NOT expect to play through. Honestly most times I do play a single I don't expect to play through nor I want to. I like to take my team and play a few shots, especially around the greens. No better time to practice in my opinion
 
jdtox said:
No I'm not paying for 4 as a single and don't get me wrong I'm not saying this is the way it should always be but in these uncertain times I don't think its completely unreasonable. In Michigan we were just given the ability to golf 4 days ago so golf courses weren't even allowed to be open. People are going to the courses in droves. We are not allowed to even have electric carts at all not even one person at a time, everyone must walk. All I'm saying before some idiot(s) wrecks it for everyone, in the interest of caution, golf courses should be more careful. All its going to take is for someone to report someone doing something stupid and then we are back to no golf. Which is not acceptable.
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I guess that I tend to look at things in literal context. To give some context to my thinking, here's a brief exchange I had with my SIL when she was asking for advice about curtailing her 5 year old daughter's behavior.

I said, "first, her tantrums have to stop and you're not addressing them. She's been having them her entire life at prescribed moments. She's 5 now and nothing's changed in that respect since she was 1."

She said, "but that's only when she's tired or hungry."

"Irrelevant," I said. "Even if we may understand the reason, even if we don't find it particularly disagreeable, the behavior is still the same. She's still lashing out and using dramatic emotion as a tool because it elicits her desired response from you."

Sorry to bore you with that but it's all I could think of to highlight my thought pattern with most things as in my the following.

Forget about the word essential for a moment, as that's what makes one action agreeable and another not, and why we must do one thing over another. Just examine the particular details of our physical actions.

We go to relatively crowded supermarkets regularly and do our best to practice social distancing. Yet we're among those that statistics would suggest at least a small portion are infected. We touch the things that they have touched, that processors have touched, packers, delivery personnel and supermarket employees before them. There's simply no way around it other than to take precautions. Reason aside, we physically do it, all of us.

The typical golf hole is multiple times larger than the typical supermarket. Social distancing within a traditional golf group of 4 is insanely easy to accomplish and far easier to touch nothing that may have been compromised.

I prefer to look at things very literally here and accept the magnitude of safety over other actions. Could others ruin it? Sure, I guess. But I couldn't imagine sliding the onus upon the course to manage that particular detail.
 
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