It is cold, windy and raining outside as I sit at my computer typing in this article. But, the adverse weather somehow doesn’t faze me in the least. And why is that, one might ask? The only answer I can give is that October of 2012 marks the 20th consecutive month that I have played golf in the WNY area.
Yes, 20 months of uninterrupted golf in the land of lake effects snow, blizzards and frequent white-outs and road closings. Prior to last winter, I had played golf in every month of the calender year except for February. Sometimes the winter golf was fabulous such as the mid-70 degree day at Deerwood on the Friday after Thanksgiving or the 50 degree day at River Oaks on New Year’s Day and there were also the times like the promised sunny, 50 degree day at ICC in Canada that never got above 40 degrees and turned to light flurries by the end of the round.
Still, it was winter golf in Buffalo and it always helped to ‘shorten’ the off season. But, still in all of my many years of hacking it around the Buffalo area, I had never wielded a club on a local golf course in the month of February. Until last winter, that is. I managed two rounds in February and while the conditions were far from balmy and may have been in fact a bit on the unpleasant side, my quest for year-round golf in WNY had been accomplished.
So, here I sit and wonder when will the streak end? The weather forecasts for the winter that I have seen are all over the place. Some are predicting above average snowfall for the eastern seaboard and the mid-Atlantic states while others are predicting a more mild winter due to a modified El Nino effect. I guess we’ll all have to stay tuned and see what transpires. After all, anyone who lives in upstate NY knows that predicting the weather here can be dicey at best. So until the snow closes the area courses for good, I’ll load up trunk, put on all the appropriate layers of clothes and try to extend my streak. Hey, you never know, but, Buffalo could become a year-round golfing destination.
