Golf is far safer than going for a walk in any town or city in Ireland and should be reopened next month, according to lovers of the sport.

Ireland’s golf courses have endured the world’s longest coronavirus closures – and by April 5th, they will have been closed for nearly 200 days.

On Lunchtime Live this morning, Mary Manning Ladies Captain at Mulraney Golf Club in County Mayo said golf is the safest sport there is when it comes to the virus.

“Definitely, it is time to open the courses up,” she said. “There is not a safer sport available, where we can all be socially distanced.

“We arrive in our own cars or with your household group. You go out and you don’t handle anybody else’s equipment but your own.

“The only part of the clubhouse that is open is the toilet, which each member sanitises after using. You are out in the fresh air, beside the Atlantic for us and it couldn’t be safer.”

Safe

She said the sport is far safer than anything you might experience leaving your house for a short walk.

“We have so much space on the golf course to stay apart – far further apart than we can stay while walking on footpaths in towns and cities where a lot of people are trying to take their exercise,” she said.

“You have these huge areas of ground locked to the public while people are squashed on sidewalks and pathways trying to have their exercise – it doesn’t make sense at all.

“It doesn’t make any sense. We are a good two metres apart, there is plenty of room and we are never all together. Even at the tee box, people stand well apart from one another in this last year.”

'Totally non-contact'

Ms Manning said it is time to trust people to act responsibly while out and about in the fresh air.

She said other sports should also be allowed to reopen but noted that golf is the safest of all.

“Golf is a totally non-contact sport,” she said. “I think if people want to go back to tennis, they should, but the thing is, each player touches the ball in tennis – nobody else touches your ball but yourself in golf. There is absolutely no contact at all in golf.”

Physical distance

Also on the show, former European Tour professional Peter Lawrie said the sport is extremely beneficial for physical and mental health and wellbeing.

“I think golf clubs now know exactly what to do and what not to do,” he said. “I do believe it is very good for people to get out and exercise. A lot of the cardiologists would say to people, ‘get out and play golf,’ it helps your physical and mental wellbeing.”

Mr Lawrie runs the Spawell Driving Range in Dublin and said there has been no COVID-19 cases linked to the business since the pandemic began.

“Here in the driving range, we have six metres between each bay,” he said.

“You can’t really get more socially distanced than that. You come in, you don’t touch anything, you come out, hit the golf ball and away you go home, so it is the same as popping into the shop for a newspaper or something like that.

“I think it is very important for people to see that they have some normality in their lives. We also have to see that life has to go on and the cure can’t be worse than the actual disease."

Also on the show, caller Shelly said she sympathises with golfers but suggested that reopening golf would see other sports demanding to open.

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