Rush Creek Golf Club Reopens, Emphasizes Social Distancing
Rush Creek Golf Club in Maple Grove is emphasizing new policies after it reopened this past weekend. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz modified the stay-at-home order, allowing golf courses to open, but urging them to follow best social distancing practices.
“We were very glad to hear that,” said Derek Stendahl, general manager of Rush Creek Golf Club. “It came up pretty quick. He gave us one day’s notice. We knew it was coming. We didn’t know it would be that fast, but we were able to kind of get everything up and ready.”
After being cooped up because of the restrictions, people were eager to play on Monday. The course filled up quickly as golfers gravitated to the links. Rush Creek got an immediate bounce from Walz’s decision.
“We did,” Stendahl said. “We have a great card holder program we do out here at Rush Creek. As of right now we are open to our card holders only. But we anticipate once we get all our procedures in place and get everything figured out, then we’ll open up to the general public and everybody after that.”
Social Distance, Sharing Clubs and Carts Not Allowed
Rush Creek players will need to adjust to changes per course policy. Those changes include requiring all golfers to social distance. o make some changes. Another request: golfers should not share clubs.
“I think the biggest thing is you’re not going to share clubs,” Stendahl said. “You’re not going to try to be tight and close to your playing partners. You’re going to want to spread out. Here we are one rider per cart, so if you come out and you want to ride, you’re going to have to take your own cart.”
According to Stendahl, Rush Creek’s design and layout is perfect for keeping large groups from congregating on the course.
“We have a pretty great situation here where we can only allow a certain number of people over our bridge which gets them onto the course,” Stendahl said. “At every time there’s only going to be 12 people ready to go on the tee. We have a lot of things in place now that are different then what we’ve done before. We’re trying to figure it all out to be responsible, yet be open so people can come out and play.”
Rush Creek still can’t host banquets and other social gatherings, which Stendahl says has put a huge dent in profits.
“We’ve lost a lot a lot of events already,” Stendahl said. “A lot of high school banquets that we really like to do because it gets all the families in here. Unfortunately a lot of weddings we’ve had to postpone or cancel.”
