5 mile "radius"

[Tommy10]

Heard last night that this may well be how it goes in order to play starting on Monday 18th. Would have to wait until June 8th for that to extend to 10 miles which would incorporate road distance from my house to the course (7.4 miles)

In my opinion "radius" is as the crow flies which means I would just make it (5 miles exactly). It would rule a lot of people out though for the first few weeks...............

 

[howbow88]

I thought this was for Ireland?

I have a few courses within that radius anyway

 

[Imurg]

Ireland will be enforcing a 5 KM limit on travel to golf clubs.
We, in the UK, don't have any such mileage restriction on travel - it just needs to be essential for work, shopping or going to a place of exercise etc etc
As we've seen, some people are capable of cycling 20 miles in an hour's worth of exercise time, I can walk the best part of 4 miles, some can run 10
We have no mileage restriction and I severely doubt that we will.
The golfing media is making this mistake all over the place and is rapidly becoming a random irritation...

 

[Crazyface]

Who's gonna police it? Bit like who's policing current exercise now really. Can't be done. Restriction should be members only. That will have players joining clubs. LOL

 

[SatchFan]

I should be OK at 420 yards.

 

[GB72]

Who's gonna police it? Bit like who's policing current exercise now really. Can't be done. Restriction should be members only. That will have players joining clubs. LOL

Guessing in Ireland it may be down to the club to check addresses against the location of the club and remove tee booking rights from those outside the 5km radius.

 

[peld]

What I have heard is that absolutely no one has a clue about what is going to happen and how they are going to do it.

I sincerely hope there is some lifting shortly (and wee jimmy in Scotland doesn’t play politics) but I’m not believing anything yet

 

[Yorkshire Hacker]

I have realised a while back that the Lockdown process is almost impossible to police. If you look at the traffic increase over the last few days, it is difficult to imagine just who is going to actually measure the miles you have travelled to access a golf course. I think the police have FAR more important matters to be dealing with.

 

[North Mimms]

Depends on how they measure it.
I've checked my sat nav.
As the crow flies, we are 3. 2 miles from club.
By car we are theoretically 4.9 miles if I take a single track road where I am likely to meet a muppet driving a Range Rover which apparently has no reverse gear so I have to reverse 100 yards to let them through as they can't possibly go back into the gate 20 yards behind them.
The route I normally take is 6.2 miles with no risk of numpty drivers.

 

[rudebhoy]

7.6 miles for me, but can't see how anyone would enforce this even if it true.

 

[Yorkshire Hacker]

7.6 miles for me, but can't see how anyone would enforce this even if it true.

Exactly!

 

[USER1999]

To the club house, or the nearest part of the property?

 

[USER1999]

I am 4.4 miles by road, way nearer by bicycle, (to the club house), and way nearer still to the 16th tee, but on foot.

 

[IanG]

They don't have to be able to enforce it to get the majority of the benefit. If they ask clubs to use best endeavours to inform members that only those within X miles may play golf, then 95% of members will abide by that. As with all things a few will ignore the request and break the guidance. Hopefully their peers who know where they live will remind them of their responsibilities in a polite fashion.

If, and it is still a big if, in the UK they choose a distance criterion as they have in Ireland, I think it will be mainly because of the the 'optics'. It would not be a good look if golfers could make 20 mile 'non-essential' journeys when others couldn't.

 

[sunshine]

This is a good social experiment on how rumours spread.

- Somebody makes up a fact (could be they are confused, could be a desire to make a sensationalist post).
- Initial replies are fairly sensible, sceptical, but naturally people start debating how it would hypothetically affect them.
- Later viewers arrive on the thread, see the replies and immediately start outlining the impact it would have on them.
- Before you know it, everyone has assessed the impact it would have on them, has devised contingency measures and shared widely.
- The inbox of golf club managers starts to fill with emails from worried members who live more than 5 miles from their club, asking for special dispensation.
- Some opportunistic clubs start advertising 5 mile radius temp membership offers on facebook.
- In 2 week's time, look out for communications from England Golf etc stating this is not a policy.

 

[Deleted member 18588]

I may be a little stupid on this but 5 miles, 10 miles or 15 miles, what difference does it make to the potential risk of transmission?

I imagine that members would be getting into their car alone at home and repeating and reversing the procedure at their club.

So what is the issue with the distance?

 

[Grant85]

I think given the statements we heard yesterday and the likelihood that there will be no change to lockdown announced on Thursday, I think it's very unlikely we will see a relaxation that allows golf courses to open or to allow people to drive to outdoor leisure pursuits.

Problem with being in lockdown is that no politician is going to relax things unless they can be pretty certain there will be no increase in deaths. And that is going to be a very gradual process over many weeks. 1 photo of 30 people queuing up on a 1st tee somewhere and everyone will be screaming how inevitable it was.

We are obviously far beyond the hurdle of 'NHS capacity' being the main reason for lockdown.

Given the severity of the virus in terms of killing elderly people, without a vaccine, it becomes a matter of when people die, not if. But clearly a politician isn't going to admit that and we are still hearing this nonsense about the virus doesn't discriminate etc. when the point is that it emphatically does, and with a bit of conviction and joined up thinking, things could easily be relaxed for younger people.

Over 87% of deaths are people aged 65 and over.
Just 1.1% are those aged under 45 (vast majority of those will be people with underlying health conditions, compromised immune systems or compromised respiratory systems).

 

[Grant85]

I may be a little stupid on this but 5 miles, 10 miles or 15 miles, what difference does it make to the potential risk of transmission?

I imagine that members would be getting into their car alone at home and repeating and reversing the procedure at their club.

So what is the issue with the distance?

Issue is if people are only travelling within a 5 mile radius to a golf facility, that limits the risk of cross country contamination.

i.e. if it does so happen that the virus spreads at a golf club for whatever reason... whether carelessness, a gate or door etc. then the outbreak will be limited to that area.

Same with shops, and I'd guess they should maybe have been a bit more strict on advice to everyone using their nearest shop. Probably doesn't matter in a bigger city, but a small town something like this would / could be a containment measure.

 

[bradleywedge]

I think the police have FAR more important matters to be dealing with.

Have they, though?

 

[bradleywedge]

I think given the statements we heard yesterday and the likelihood that there will be no change to lockdown announced on Thursday, I think it's very unlikely we will see a relaxation that allows golf courses to open or to allow people to drive to outdoor leisure pursuits.

Problem with being in lockdown is that no politician is going to relax things unless they can be pretty certain there will be no increase in deaths. And that is going to be a very gradual process over many weeks. 1 photo of 30 people queuing up on a 1st tee somewhere and everyone will be screaming how inevitable it was.

We are obviously far beyond the hurdle of 'NHS capacity' being the main reason for lockdown.

Given the severity of the virus in terms of killing elderly people, without a vaccine, it becomes a matter of when people die, not if. But clearly a politician isn't going to admit that and we are still hearing this nonsense about the virus doesn't discriminate etc. when the point is that it emphatically does, and with a bit of conviction and joined up thinking, things could easily be relaxed for younger people.

Over 87% of deaths are people aged 65 and over.
Just 1.1% are those aged under 45 (vast majority of those will be people with underlying health conditions, compromised immune systems or compromised respiratory systems).

Post of the day.