Warm weather leading to a boost in business at local golf courses

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – There hasn’t been much to complain about when it comes to our winter weather this year.

News1130 Meteorologist Russ Lacate says we can expect more of the same conditions as we move towards spring. The Weather Network seems to concur, predicting a warm, dry season.

That unseasonable warmth has been a boost to the region’s golf courses, which would normally be pretty quiet this time of year.

Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club does most of their 33,000 annual rounds between April and September and normally drops off heavily in the winter, says director of golf Alan Palmer.

“Last year, we did about 800 rounds of golf versus about 1,100 this year in January. But we’ve seen as low as 400 so definitely, there’s a lot more action.”

That’s nearly a 30 per cent increase over last winter.

“We’ve seen an increase in rounds. In January… we did roughly 40 rounds a day and that’s gone up to roughly 60 rounds a day in the month of February.”

Things have been even better at Vancouver’s three public courses.

“Looking at February, specifically, our numbers are up approximately 50 per cent across all three courses because of the good weather,” says Joan Probert, who oversees operations at Langara, Fraserview, and McCleery.

She says last year was a particularly bad one but 2015 is on par for a similar season to 2013, which was also a warm one.

“If we look at our numbers in 2013, the weather was very similar in February as we’ve had this year so we are enjoying the numbers that we would expect in a sunny month,” says Probert.

They’re prepared for an equally eventful March and Probert says the only thing that could slow things down is a heavy frost, which would push back morning tee times.

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