Does Santa Play Golf After Work?

GNN blogger Kyle German of the Point Roberts Golf and Country Club in Point Roberts, Wash., is looking forward to his son’s first Christmas, but he says, while he’s away from work celebrating with family, he knows other people can’t wait to the golf course on Christmas Day, even if it is closed.

We’re going to work through to a couple of days before Christmas.

Personally, we’ll have the family dinner at my in-laws’ house. We’ll have about 14 or 15 people over there. Our family tradition is we go over there Christmas morning for breakfast, then everybody relaxes, goes home and comes back for Christmas dinner. It’s a full day, but it’s fun and relaxing.

It’s going to be my son Lane’s first Christmas, so it will be interesting to see how he deals with all of the wrapping paper and boxes. I’m sure he’ll be excited, so I’m looking forward to that.

This will be the first time that I’ve actually taken some time off. I might take four days, but it will probably be three, but not everybody plans to be away from golf during the holidays.

People still play golf around here unless there’s snow on the ground. When I was a full-time teaching pro, you’d have some of your students calling on Christmas Eve and asking, `Can I get a lesson tomorrow?’

I’d answer, `No, it’s Christmas Day.’

They don’t care. They want to play golf or take a lesson. We’ll come here on Boxing Day and there will be evidence of 30 to 40 people playing golf on Christmas Day.

If you go to one of the driving ranges around here anytime from the 20th to Christmas Eve and listen to people talk, they’re so excited about playing golf on Christmas Day because they know it’s free. Nobody’s going to be working, so they know they can just walk on. They love it.

Last year, I contemplated getting our maintenance crew to park a bunch of our big tractors in front of the driveway with a big sign saying `Closed for Christmas,’ but you never know if somebody might get mad and do something they shouldn’t.

The only thing that you’ve got going for you in that case is that the people who want to play on Christmas are usually golfers, so they’re not going to damage your golf course, or you’d like to think that’s the case. You would hope.

Coming back on Boxing Day, you cringe a little at what you’re going to find, but if they’re that gung-ho about it, they’re probably golfers and golfers usually respect golf.

Golf is still my absolute passion. It’s something that I love to do, but I’m not playing on Christmas Day.

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