GREATER SPRINGFIELD – After Gov. Charlie Baker announced that golf courses would be allowed to reopen on May 7, courses in Southwick and Westfield were ready to open the doors immediately.

While each course has its own set of restrictions to maintain the current social distancing and sanitization policies, there are also some statewide restrictions as well. Some of these restrictions include no golf carts, no caddies, along with no putting greens, driving ranges, or chipping areas among others. One of the other universal restrictions is that tee times are required and are spread 15 minutes apart.

Nancy Kotowitz with Shaker Farms Country Club in Westfield said they have been itching to open ever since the restrictions were put in place for non-essential businesses but explained that they were unhappy it took so long. “We were ecstatic we could finally reopen but we were upset that it took so long. It is very easy to social distance on a golf course. A lot of people here were disgusted with how long it took to open,” she said.

In order to maintain the social distancing guidelines, she said the course set up a service window where golfers can swipe their own cards to avoid contact with any staff.

Kotowitz added that as soon as the announcement was made the course started receiving calls for tee times, but they were ready for it. “As soon as it was announced at 10 the phone started ringing like crazy for tee times that day, so I was happy I was here to answer the calls,” she said. “We were pretty much ready to go as soon as the announcement was made so we just flipped the sign to open.”

At the Ranch Golf Club in Southwick, golf pro Jared Slingerland said it was frustrating at first, but he understood the governor’s thought process. “My thought personally was that I trusted his opinion, I know that we were in the highest for cases and if this is what it takes to keep people safe, then fine I get it,” he said.

While the closure may have hurt financially, Slingerland said the maintenance staff prepared the course even more than in previous years. “The course itself never has a chance to heal in a regular year, so the one positive to all this is the course had a chance to heal. It gave my maintenance crew some time and they did not have to work around people and do projects they typically couldn’t get to,” he said.

He added that he was excited to hear the announcement but was a little nervous about opening. “The first reaction is excitement, we’ve been ready, the course is in great shape,” he said, “The second was a little panic because of how quick it was and the timing was tough for us because there’s a lot of moving pieces with getting information out to the public.”

Slingerland added that the course is taking a variety of different policies to follow the new guidelines. “We are allowing players to book and prepay online or over the phone so there is no interaction at the window. We are also wearing gloves and masks and disinfecting after each transaction. We’re also not allowing anyone on the tee box until the next group is off the first green,” he said.

He added that the course is doing everything it can to stay open. He said, “We’re going above and beyond to make sure we can stay open to follow those guidelines.”