Playing During a Pandemic How comfortable are you playing golf when the world is suffering from a highly infectious virus? This is a question many golfers are asking themselves before heading to the course this season. Daniel Sachau, Ph.D., and Madison Moland from Minnesota State University, Mankato, wanted to know the answers. Working in conjunction with W.P. Ryan of the Minnesota Golf Association, they surveyed more than 8,800 MGA members in early April, 2020. Here are some results from the survey titled: Golfer Attitudes About Playing During a Pandemic. Overall Comfort 70% of members are comfortable playing now 27% would like to wait and see how the summer progresses 3% are unwilling to play CART COMFORT 61% of members are somewhat/highly comfortable sharing a cart AGE 58% of players ages 65+ were comfortable playing today 78% of players under 65 were comfortable playing today GENDER 71% of men were comfortable playing compared to 63% of women Political Affiliation Conservatives in the survey were more comfortable with playing, sharing a cart and travelling overnight than liberals WILLING TO PLAY NOW Conservatives SHARING A CART Conservatives Liberals 76.9% 58.4% Liberals 28.6% uncomfortable 59.4% 71.4% comfortable 40.7% of members are comfortable playing now of players under 65 were comfortable playing today of respondents indicated they were highly comfortable and would play today of men were comfortable playing today 6 MINNESOTAGOLFER Summer 2020 mngolf.orghttp://www.mngolf.org