Tennis, golf swing into action

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/05/2020 (1988 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s only the beginning of May, but for local golfers and tennis players, Monday felt like Christmas.

Golf courses and tennis courts were officially allowed to open Monday as a part of the provincial government’s first phase of the reopening plan owing to the coronavirus.

The sun was nowhere to be found, but that didn’t stop golfers and tennis players from taking full advantage of the opportunity to go out and play.

“It’s beautiful. It’s almost unexplainable,” said Adam Macario, who was getting ready to hit the links with a friend at Kildonan Park Golf Course Monday morning. “Instead of sitting around watching reruns of the Jets games, I’m out golfing.”

James Morgan and Barry Welsh have been teeing off at Kildonan Park on Saturday mornings for 22 years. Neither of them worked Monday, so they figured they’d get a round in before the weekend. With Manitoba’s low COVID-19 numbers and all the precautions being taken by the golf course, Morgan and Welsh felt it was safe to bring out the clubs.

“We’ve been hibernating for the past eight weeks or so. It’s good to be able to walk around, see a friend again and just enjoy a day out,” Morgan said.

“If you can’t social distance here, you have a problem,” Welsh added with a laugh.

Around 9 a.m., there were nearly a dozen eager golfers spread out while waiting outside the clubhouse to check in and pay before they could head to the first hole. One by one, groups were called in by course manager Ryan Bochinski. Tee times, which had to be booked in advance, were spread out by 15 minutes and golfers were asked to walk the course, or ride in separate carts if they were golfing with someone they don’t live with. Due to early morning frost, tee times were pushed back 30 minutes.

“I’ve been monitoring the front door. I kind of feel like a bouncer these days,” Bochinski said. “You call out the next group, the one group comes in and pays, then out they go and I call the next group to come in. Even for the customers, there are a lot of things to get used to with how things are running, but I’m sure in a week or two everyone will be used to the new system and everything will run a lot smoother.”

Farther north on Main Street, Shooters Family Golf Centre was also open for business. Every second driving range platform was blocked off with caution tape to ensure people were staying at an appropriate distance from one another. The lineup to the clubhouse was also roped off and there were lines on the ground to tell people where to stand.

In tennis action, George Kylar unlocked the front gate to Sargent Park Tennis Garden in the afternoon. His son Kevin, the top-ranked men’s player in the province, and Evan Mancer, who’s ranked in the top five, were the first players to step onto the court.

“It’s been tough. I started playing when I was 10 and I don’t think I’ve ever taken almost two months off, said Kevin Kylar, who plays at England’s Loughborough University. “I missed it a little bit. It’s nice to just do something as opposed to sitting at home all day where you get kinda bored. Even though the weather might not be the best this week, I’m sure a lot of people will come out and play.”

Mancer, who is also a top-five ranked squash player nationally, said he’s glad to see tennis get approved for play as it’s a great stress reliever during these trying times.

“Andre Agassi said that there is no sport in the world where you’re actually farther away from any competitor than tennis and I think he’s probably right. If you look at Kevin and I, we’re a long way away (from each other). I guess we just can’t shake hands if I beat him,” Mancer said.

Forbidding post-match handshaking is just one of the many new rules the local tennis community will have to deal with in order to be able to play. Tennis Manitoba sent tennis club directors such as Kylar nearly 20 pages of instructions on how to keep players safe. The rules include things such as each player marking and bringing their own tennis balls, no doubles play and limiting the amount of players on the courts. These rules will be enforced at clubs by staff and signage, but the same can’t be said for public courts.

“I support all the players and those who want to play will obey what they’ve been told, but there’s always the odd person, and I know it because you drive around and see it, who grabs a racquet from the garage and goes there and doesn’t even know the rules,” Kylar said. “Unsupervised tennis is definitely riskier at this point.”

Kylar, who is allowing a maximum of 10 players inside at a time and is encouraging people to book court times before showing up, was busy answering his phone all weekend.

“A lot of kids and their parents are calling because the sports they’re normally in, such as the spring hockey leagues that are suspended and all that, they’re calling and saying ‘Hey, when are your courts opening? We want to come.’ They’d play here (occasionally), but now I feel they’re going to play here a lot once the weather gets a little bit better,” said Kylar.

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31