Weather a nice respite for golfers

NAHANT – Thursday was just too good a day to waste. So Rick Ward and Jason Rivard, friends who live two states away from each other, met halfway at Kelley Greens for an impromptu round of golf.”When I left Wolfboro (N.H.), there was snow on the ground and it was raining like crazy,” said Ward. He and Rivard, who lives in Providence, R.I., have always heard about Kelley Greens and its willingness to accommodate golfers during all seasons.”But it’s a par-3 type of course,” said Rivard. “So we kind of held off. But today’s such a day, we decided to go for it and meet each other halfway.”The two friends were doing it in style, too ? riding in a golf cart, each of them puffing on a cigar and each with his own preferred beverage to accompany them.”We’re not inveterate golfers,” Rivard said. “We’re inveterate drinkers and smokers who play golf. And this kind of a day is a great day to just get out there and get some swings in.And they have an explanation for all this unprecedented balmy weather.”I’d like to thank Al Gore personally for inventing global warming,” said Rivard. “This is incredible.”In most years,” he said, “you wouldn’t get out until mid-March. I’m in a golf league and that’s where we start.”That might be the case around here, but Ward says it’s “usually sometime in the middle of April before we get out in Wolfboro.”As for whether he was playing hooky from work to come down and hit the ball around, “my name’s on the door,” said Ward.Ward and Rivard were one of many golfers who took to the links Thursday to take advantage of the good weather.”We’d have done it a day earlier,” said Lynn’s George Bakas, “but I wanted to make sure we (he and Todd Brown) could do it together.”There was the small matter of a patch of inclement weather that threatened to ruin the golfers’ reverie. It didn’t last, however, although it may have scared some of them away.”Not us,” said Rivard. “We were in the clubhouse eating lunch and we let the shower pass right over”And I might add the food’s pretty good here, too,” Rivard said.”As soon as I put my clubs in the trunk,” said Bakas, “it started to rain.”Bakas and Brown aren’t strangers to the art of winter golfing.”Last year at this time, we were out here too,” Bakas said. “There had been a bit of a thaw, so we were able to get out. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t all that bad.”Brown and Bakas, who are both members at Lynn’s Gannon golf course, said that last year they probably shot “about 30 rounds.”Gannon,” he said, “doesn’t open until about mid-March. But they do a great job up there. The course is in great shape.”Another of the golfers, Jay Casey, said this was his first time ever golfing out of season. But the weather was just so good he couldn’t resist.”One of my friends called me and said, ‘hey, let’s go over,’ so I did,” Casey said. “It’s really a beautiful day. It’s surprising that a place like this would be open in February. A lot of the courses cover their greens.”A lot of those courses that are closed ? I bet they wish they were open today.”If it seems as if they were all rushing the season, there’s a good reason for that. Forecasts called for a messy mix of rain and snow today, and plummeting temperatures over the weekend.Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].