April was a wash for Maine golf courses.

May, however, has been a different story.

After losing a month of business to the coronavirus, courses have seen business meet — and exceed — their expectations in May, with day after day full of tee times from early morning into the late afternoon.

Courses always get busy as spring starts to feel more like summer. But with the added wrinkle of a month spent at home with nowhere to take the clubs, golfers have been more eager than ever to play.

“It’s pretty much been full tee sheets every day,” said Lucas Worrell, the director of golf at The Meadows in Litchfield. “We’re definitely seeing way more rounds than in any year previous. I asked Randall (Anderson), the owner, how far ahead do you think we are, business-wise? And he said we’re basically blowing last year and previous years out of the water.”

Waterville Country Club, head pro Don Roberts said, just passed 3,000 rounds played in May on Monday.

“Usually in May we’re in the low-to-mid 2,000s. Twenty-three, 24, 25 hundred,” Roberts said. “It might be a record May for rounds. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be.”

Even with coronavirus restrictions in place and tee times spaced out, golfers have been eager to grab whatever time they can. Dick Browne, the head pro at Natanis Golf Course, said it wasn’t a given that business would bounce back after the restrictions were lifted on May 1.

“We were not sure. It was a little bit of a guessing game,” he said. “We were hopeful that people were going to come out and support us because we were feeling that they were looking to do something outside. … I think people feel it’s a very safe activity, but they’re cautious. They’re doing what they’ve got to do.”

Browne said the work that was put in at Natanis and other courses in the area during the suspension has helped keep those numbers up. Course superintendents and greenskeepers made sure to use the milder-than-usual April to make sure the grounds were in good shape for when the sport could return, and the turnout suggests the players have noticed.

“The course is in excellent shape, and that always helps,” Browne said. “The word of mouth on that gets out too. If your course is in bad shape, they don’t come out as much. They’re paying money, they expect a decent product.”

• • •

Caleb Manuel has set lofty goals for himself as he’s started an impressive golf career.

He just didn’t expect one of them to be checked off Tuesday morning.

Manuel, who graduated from Mt. Ararat this spring and will play at the University of Connecticut, shot an astounding 59 at Brunswick Golf Club, shattering the course record — that he had tied — by seven strokes.

“It still hasn’t really set in,” said Manuel, who had 12 birdies and one eagle while playing with three others. “That’s probably the best accomplishment I could have this year so far, because there aren’t a lot of tournaments to be playing in. … I was writing down goals at the beginning of the year, and 59 was one of them. It feels good.”

Brunswick’s director of golf, A.J. Kavanaugh, has seen Manuel rip up the course before, but never the way he did Tuesday.

“He’s just on a different planet,” he said. “Phil Mickelson has the record at Cape Arundel (Golf Club) at 60 or 61. That’s the type of company he’s in now.”

Manuel has gone low before — he shot a 60 from the white tees last summer — but he had never done it to this degree from the tips. But after bogeying the sixth hole, bringing him to 2 under, he ripped off nine straight birdies, and then chipped in for eagle on the 15th.

Now history was within reach.

“I kind of realized (after the birdie putt on 12) ‘I’m not going for the blue (tees) course record anymore, I’m going for my own record,’ ” he said. “The hole definitely did feel pretty big there. I was making some putts.”

Manuel shot 27 on the back nine. He made sure not to play it safe.

“When I get to a certain point, (I think) don’t be scared to make a bogey,” said Manuel, who tapped in for par to finish at 59. “Take it as a challenge, not a threat. Keep going for it and try to go as low as you can. There’s no real boundary how low you can go in golf. You set your own boundaries. Today, I didn’t really have one.”

• • •

Next week, the Maine State Golf Association is taking its first step in a competitive direction.

The MSGA will host its first Member Play Day at Waterville Country Club on Tuesday and Wednesday, the first of 35 such events this season. The events are open to MSGA members and are either team or individual competitions.

Roberts said 150-200 golfers are expected.

“It sold out in four minutes,” he said. “There’s much demand for people that want to play, I think, just about anywhere. Just to get out and go.”

Roberts added that the course is looking forward to helping the MSGA kick off the season.

“We’re just lucky our day was June 3. If it was May 30, we would have lost it,” he said. “We enjoy having the groups here. The course is in beautiful condition, so they’ll have fun. It’ll be a good day for everybody. A good day for the club, financially, and a good day for them to get out and play.”

• • •

Jeff Whitley is making the ultimate feat in golf an annual occurrence. The Natanis golfer recorded a hole-in-one Sunday with an 8-iron on the 143-yard 12th hole at the Arrowhead course, but it doesn’t end there. It was Whitley’s second year in a row with a hole-in-one, and both came on No. 12.

“He likes that hole,” Browne said.

Another hole-in-one earlier in the month went to Lucas Worrell, the director of golf at The Meadows, who aced the 155-yard third hole with an 8-iron in his first round of the year on May 2. It was the former University of Maine at Farmington golfer’s first hole-in-one.

“It was kind of surreal,” Worrell said. “You always walk up to the hole and hope you find one in there. To actually see the ball in there when you’re not expecting it to be, it wasn’t an out-of-body experience, but it definitely didn’t seem real.”

« Previous

Field hockey: Five Mt. Ararat players to extend careers at collegiate level

Next »

Track and field: Longtime rivals and friends still pushing each other