It’s here! Spring! Unfortunately, it is in name only here on Cape Cod. The same geographic and meteorological aspects that keep us relatively snow-free all winter do us no favors in the spring. Off Cape might see temperatures in the sixties and seventies while our sandy peninsula stays ten degrees colder due to the oceans waters surrounding us. Today, the first full day of the season on the calendar, finds the mercury at 33 degrees along with a wind chill that will knock your socks off… or more precisely, ensure that you keep your socks on for a while longer.
But there is no denying that spring is a state of mind, regardless of how long it may take for the weather to catch up. With the sun shining and bare ground, it’s enough to half fill the parking lot at Dennis Highlands Golf Course. Of course most of those crazies play all winter anyway, with nothing better to do and golf bags full of blackberry brandy. Now the cast of characters is beginning to change. Since we have two municipal courses and one of the best membership deals you can imagine (a “two-fer”) we also have a huge roster of members. Every day sees a familiar face or two renewing their bag tags, leaving the clubhouse with a smile in anticipation of the season to come. The weekends will find the course clogged with mainlanders escaping the last of the off-Cape snow cover and members out for their first round of the season. I will be among them.
Each winter one of our golf courses is closed while the other remains open for play; tee times are hurry-up-and-wait, no times assigned. These few weeks before Dennis Pines reopens will jam up the Highlands with hordes of anxious golfers looking to shake off the winter blues, work out the kinks and take a few swipes at the ball. It might mean several hours in line waiting for the box, but what else has a golfer to do? When others consider it time to start spring chores like yard work or spring cleaning or washing the car, golfers go golfing.
We start to reverse the process we started in the fall; watching the weather channel, gauging the wind chill. Layer on the clothes, head on out and hope you can peel off a jacket of two by the third hole. We expect to play nine. If it doesn’t cloud up or a cold front doesn’t blow through, we might make eighteen. As our fairways green up and the sun grow stronger we’ll get back in the groove with our regular foursomes and weekly matches. We’ll hit balls until dusk then hang at the bar and talk golf until after dark. Whatever we’ve left undone over the winter on the honey-do list will remain unfinished until fall. In season, we eat at the course, we play at the course, and we socialize at the course. We are golfers. It is where we belong.
