Who would’ve known we’d be under seige this winter and spring by an invisible enemy (other than ourselves, on the golf course)? It was a frisky 41° day on January 7, 2020 when I took this picture of two Sterling Farms Golfers. It had been my intention to do a special “Winter” edition, and I was amazed at how temperatures would swing upwards of 30° between days (later that week, it was 66°F!).
I kept waiting for a chance to photograpgh the show falling on golf course superintendent, Mike Golden’s, putting greens, but never had the chance, because… everything changed.
The last few months have been a surreal time for us all. Golf nuts, you all know who you are, with practice tees in their bedrooms, who hit buckets upon buckets of balls in sub-zero wind chills (in their minds, thanking Paul Grillo, and Richard Collarini, for cleverly figuring out a way to use magnets to hold the plastic range bay ‘doors’ closed), have been bottled up, with the rest of us, all under lock-down.
Images of people staring at us in surgical masks are burned into our psyches each time we walk outside the door, and after months of this creep show, we are all… well… ready to move on with life. Sterling Farms offers us just such a much-needed respite.
In this issue, I have had to dial things back a tad, because of the need to privacy, social distancing, and the open wounds we are all still feeling. The management, led by Stamford Golf Authority executive director Paul Grillo, has their hands full (literally), and it is like war-time for them, and the staff at Sterling Farms. So, inasmuch as I’d love to do more, I will do as I hope everyone else will too, and stand down from my normal modus operandi, and instead: tread as lightly as possible.
It’s hard to imagine going to your job at Sterling Farms, and wondering if you will get sick from some wreckless, selfish yahoo. I try to imagine how difficult, and scary, it is for the entire Sterling Farms family, as well all decend upon them. Do try to be mindful, eh?
