While plenty of America has been playing real golf for awhile now, we’ve just started seeing the courses open in the Chicagoland area.  We’ve seen some pockets of decent weather this “Spring,” but it’s still been plenty cold, plenty wet, and I’m sure we’ll have one more snow storm before Spring really hits.  This is the typical start of golf season for us.  If you’re a real golfer here, you get used to playing in cold weather.  Chances are, you’ve even already played more than a few cold weather rounds anyway.

Like many golfers though, The Masters really gets the golf blood boiling.  Watching the coverage all week and hearing the fake bird sounds piped in makes you NEED to get out there.  Unfortunately, it does the same for everyone else in the world that owns some golf clubs.  That’s why every year when The Masters starts, I pray for cold weather.  I want it to be just warm enough that the course is open before 9am, but cold enough to keep the traffic down.  I wrap up my round with an 87 around 11:30am, grab some Mcdonald’s and get home to watch The Masters with the family.  Perfect.

Let’s say it’s “too warm” though.  Now you see a million other people with your same idea and all the tee times are booked.  You get off at 8:45am, get stuck behind roughly 10,000 groups and play 15 holes in 5+ hours.  Forget it.  Oh, it’s also warm enough to work in the yard too.  So now you have to get home from your 6 hour round and start blowing leaves out of the gardens at the house and pick up sticks that fell from the 50 blizzards we had.  Maybe even mow the lawn.  Saturdays Masters coverage = gone.  If only the temperatures stayed a little lower for a bit longer, we could still play golf in a reasonable time AND watch The Masters.

At this point, I’ve survived the miserable Chicago winter onslaught which included historic, literally dangerous, cold temperatures.  What’s a few more weeks of a little chill in the air so us golfers can get a few real rounds in before the real season kicks off?  Trust me, I want all of these people playing golf too.  Spend money, keep our courses open and the equipment companies selling gear.  I’m just asking for a couple of weeks head start before public golf becomes impossible.  Is that so unreasonable?