Blue skies and a temperature of 50 degrees brought more than 100 golfers to Coyote Run Golf Course in Flossmoor on Sunday, Feb. 19.
There’s no comparison to “watching golf at home versus coming out for golf,” said Flossmoor resident Alan Ermshler who was at the course with his son, Jack, a freshman at Homewood-Flossmoor High School and a member of the Vikings golf team.
Ermshler admitted the wind gusting in the parking lot was much stronger than it was at their house, but they were willing to take their chances on the course.
for golf at Coyote Run Golf Course in Flossmoor. (Marilyn Thomas/H-F Chronicle)
Tom Klein of Orland Park was meeting a buddy for golf at Coyote Run at about 2 p.m. It wasn’t his first time winter golfing, but the first time at Coyote Run this year. Typically Klein and his friends do video game golf in the winter months, but the weather was just too nice not to hit the links.
Michael Bush of Flossmoor was at Coyote Run with friends.
“We’re bored and you don’t get many days like this in February,” he said.
John Parish of Flossmoor, one of the foursome playing with Bush, said despite the wind they were doing pretty good.
“You’ve got to keep (the ball) low and to the ground. Low and slow,” Parish said, as he proceeded to the green for his next stroke.
Dan Gollinger, a Homewood-Flossmoor Park District assistant at Coyote Run, said he recorded 115 golfers as of 2 p.m. Registrations were being accepted online.
The grass is dormant and the wind was howling with gusts up to 25 miles per hour, but Gollinger wasn’t surprised to have dozens of golfers on the course.
“We just open weather permitting,” he said. “We’re open today (Sunday) and we’ll open tomorrow and then we’ll close down” until the next stretch of golf temperatures. The park district used to say opening was around March 15, but Gollinger said it no longer keeps to a scheduled opening day.