Golf season off to rough start in snowy central Wisconsin

Bill Stupar gazes out the window of the pro shop at the Wisconsin River Golf Club, surrounded by sleeves of golf balls, tees and a box of unused scorecards.

The owner and golf professional at the public course was hoping to see lush green fairways, or at least brown grass about to awaken, and smooth putting greens filled with golfers.

Instead, Stupar sees the depressing sight of a snow-covered course that has yet to have a single hole played, let alone a round completed.

The golf season’s official opening is at the mercy of Mother Nature. Welcome to spring in Wisconsin, golfers.

“What can you do? This is the spring from hell,” Stupar said, remembering the happiness of a March 14 opening just a year earlier. “The most discouraging part is there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Looking at the 10-day forecast, nothing like that is happening. For it to drag on this long is a bad deal.”

In a normal year — and this spring has been anything but normal with frigid weather and freezing precipitation — most, if not all, of the golf courses in central Wisconsin would be open.

The average opening date usually is in late March or early April. The recent return of winter could push the starting date back to late April or even May.

And that means golfers are out of luck when it comes to scratching the itch in their desire to see what sort of shape their game is in.

Marshfield Country Club golf professional Chip Acker opted to put a more positive spin on an otherwise bad situation.

"Obviously, it’s a big difference from last year. At least the snow didn’t melt all at the same time and we had flooding,” Acker said. “The more you’re in this business, it’s like, ‘Oh well, what can you do?’”

No matter what twist you put on it, most golfers agree the season is off to a rough start.

“Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is people have their greatest desire to golf in the spring, so every day you lose, you can’t get back,” Acker said. “All we can do is hope we can be open within 10 days with any reasonable temperatures and no more snow.”

And that’s not ideal for a business with such a short window of opportunity.

The sad part is a number of golf courses in the area were on the brink of getting ready to open with a few more dry days last week.

Such was the case for Indianhead Golf Course in Mosinee. Snow had been removed from some of the greens in anticipation of opening. Then a trip to the back nine, where a ton of snow still remains, provided a large dose of reality.

Instead, the recreational golfer has been watching his or her golf clubs collecting dust instead of piling up birdies and pars with that perfected swing and sweet putting stroke.

“The key thing is to stay positive,” said Eric Oestreich, the golf professional at Indianhead. “In the meantime, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure the course is 100 percent ready when we do open.

“It’s not extremely abnormal, looking at the grand scheme of things.”

As a result of the poor weather, the start of golf lessons and golf leagues are on hold, too.

The only question is how long, and that will depend on when the weather finally breaks and a stretch of dry and sunny conditions graces the area.

Until then, everyone realizes there isn’t much that can be done. The reaction of the golfer at-large having to keep his clubs in the bag at least a little while longer is as might be expected.

“A lot of general sadness and depression, and it’s not necessarily just golf. People want to get outside riding bikes and raking their grass,” Stupar said. “My hope is that we get to the end of June, and this is all forgotten.”

Reported by:  Wisconsin Rapids Tribune