Weather opens brief window, golfers climb in

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This article was published 13/11/2023 (749 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg golfers had Mother Nature as their caddy, as above-normal temperatures allowed them to hit the links in mid-November.

With the mercury expected to climb into the high single digits for most of this week, golfers were able to tee it up Monday under sunny skies and a high of almost 6 C at Southside Golf Course or practice their swing on the driving range at Shooters Family Golf Centre.

With a high of 8 C and partly sunny skies expected Tuesday, golfers will also have the additional option of teeing off on Shooters’ 18-hole course on north Main Street.

“It was fun, it was good,” said Kevin Milne as he finished 18 holes at Southside. “It was close enough to golf to scratch the itch.”

Milne, who just retired in September, said he has already booked tee times for most of this week. “I will be back here at 1:30 (Tuesday)… The grass on the fairways is very green — so green, it’s like the middle of summer.”

Dragan Velaja, too, has booked tee times every day this week.

“It was awesome, even better than I thought it would be,” Velaja said Monday. “I thought it would be a swamp, but it wasn’t. I love golf.

“We are going to take advantage of it this week.”

Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Shannon Moodie was beginning to think Old Man Winter already had his icy grip on Winnipeg before recent days.

“We got the first round of snow and I thought it was going to melt, but then we had the second and I thought, you never know,” Moodie said.

The mild temperatures are nice, but are nowhere near record-setting. The record high was 17.4 C, set in 2007; the record low was -25.8 C in 1986.

“This is just the climate we live in,” Moodie said. “The shoulder seasons, fall and spring, tend to be quite unstable. We reached 5.4 C and -0.1 is the average, so it isn’t that much different.

“But this is a treat and people should get out and enjoy it.”

Southside general manager Jaclyn Steep said she was busy setting up tee times for golfers pulling their clubs out of a short hibernation to take to the course located a few minutes south of the capital city.

“It’s very exciting,” Steep said. “This is definitely one of the latest we’ve ever been open. We closed back in October, but then we’ve been watching in the last week if we could possibly reopen… Now we have 10 golfers out there and a lot of the tee times booked for this afternoon.

“People really still want to get out and play.”

The only differences between golfing in July and November: not shooting for the regular greens but for a hole dug in the fairway, and you’ll have to walk, because the motorized carts have been put away for the season. (Regular green fees are discounted due to the moves, Steep said.)

At Shooters, on north Main Street, food services manager Amy Cerasani said the turnaround to reopen was quick.

“I was sitting on my couch (Sunday night) and the owner called and said we’re opening the driving range tomorrow,” Cerasani said. “And around 12:30 (Monday), they made the decision to open the golf course.

“We closed on Oct. 18, and I don’t remember any other time in the 15 years I’ve been here where we’ve been closed for a month and then reopened.”

Tee times are first-come, first-served because Shooters had already shut down its computerized booking system, Cerasani added.

“The sun was out today and there wasn’t a lot of wind,” she said. “People are out enjoying it. We all know -30 will be coming here before we know it.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca