GALION — All Bryce Lehman and the rest of his high school golf coaching colleagues can do is keep their fingers crossed.
With the season scheduled to tee off Aug. 5, golf is the canary in the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s coal mine in terms of implementation of social distancing protocols. While every sport is different — especially contact sports like football and soccer — golf will give OHSAA officials an early feel for what the restart of high school sports look like amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In the big picture golf is pretty small on the radar, but we will be the first to get going,” said Lehman, who has led Galion to the Division II state tournament each of the past three years. “We’re less than a month away from the start of our season.”
Gov. Mike DeWine said during his Thursday press briefing the next month would go a long way in determining if high school sports would resume in the fall.
“What we’re aiming to do here is to have fall where we have kids back in school, have fall and do fall sports, have Friday night football,” DeWine said. “What we do in the next 30 days or so is frankly going to determine how that all works out.”
So what exactly does a socially-distanced golf tournament look like?
“If you look at high school golf, it’s pretty much built for social distancing anyway,” Madison boys coach Eric Wellman said. “We’re kind of like the guinea pigs because our season starts earlier than everyone else’s, but it would be tough to gauge other sports off golf because there is no contact between kids.”
Golf teams are at the mercy of the courses on which they play. Course officials have their own social distancing guidelines in place.
“With golf, it’s so much different than with other sports because we are using facilities that already have their own COVID rules,” Lexington girls coach Michael Kathrein said. “They’ve already got social distancing regulations and we’re just doing what they are telling us.”
It remains to be seen if the OHSAA would allow low-risk sports like golf to proceed if it is determined contact sports cannot safely resume.
“I don’t know if the OHSAA would cancel one or two sports and not cancel them all,” Lehman said. “You can definitely social distance in golf, but I’m not sure how that would work in football.”
Then, of course, there is the financial implications of wiping out the the football season.
“Almost every school really needs football to go because that is what generates the revenue to help you fund your other sports,” Kathrein said. “They could say, ‘We can’t cancel football and have golf because we can’t afford golf if we don’t have football.’ I’d say that is at least a consideration.”
Additional guidance on the restart of high school sports is expected from DeWine’s office next week. For its part, the OHSAA is preparing for high school sports to go on as scheduled.
“The OHSAA office is proceeding as if fall sports will occur, meaning practices will begin on Aug. 1 and we will conduct our usual series of tournaments in 10 fall sports,” interim executive director Bob Goldring said in a memo to superintendents, principals and athletic officials earlier this week. “As you all have seen during this pandemic, those plans can be modified or canceled quickly.”
For golf coaches, that means hurry up and wait.
“We’re kind of in a holding pattern,” Wellman said. “We’re preparing as though our season will start on time. I’d like to think we’re a go, but you just never know.”
Lehman, who returns everyone from last year’s state-qualifying team, is holding out hope.
“The powers that be are probably going to pay more attention to contact sports,” Lehman said. “But if they come to see what golf is doing, I think they’ll realize it can be done.”
