South San Antonio News

Gov. Greg Abbott announced that golf courses can remain open across Texas, but players have to abide by social distancing rules and make other alterations. 

Abbott's spokesman John Wittman told the San Antonio Express-News that golf courses will be required to end any operations with workers, carts and shops. But he also said golfers can walk the courses as log as they are following social distancing rules. 

But San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg had previously closed all golf courses in the city, according to the newspaper.

“We were concerned about clubhouses, drinking, clustering together of golfers, but we also encouraged people to be outside exercising, to walk the trails,” Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff told the San Antonio Express-News. “You can’t police everyone every minute. We expect people to act reasonably.”

In Austin, golf courses have remained open, but don't offer flags, carts, pro shops or bathrooms.

“I honestly don’t know if I can keep my courses open under these conditions,” Ed Miller, chief operating officer of Boerne-based Foresight Golf, told the San Antonio Express-News. “Every day is a complete roller coaster of emotion and anxiety. And now the situation has changed again... This is completely uncharted territory. Very few people walk a golf course anymore. Most operators will view this order as the equivalent of closing.”

With some cities closing golf courses and others keeping them open, it has caused some golfers to leave town to golf

“No one should be leaving their county to play golf in our county,” Bandera County Judge Richard Evans, told the Express-News. “No one should be violating their shelter-in-place orders.”

Still, others who are would follow social distancing rules but don't are missing the game. 

“It’s a debilitating and miserable feeling...I’m stuck in the house and my family would really like for me to get out and play golf," said Tom Immenschuh, a finance employee in San Antonio, told the Express-News. “They’ve taken it from a public health concern to an infringement of my civil rights… Show me the data that there have been a lot of people infected from playing golf.”