Amid an unpredictable spring, will sports fields open on time?

Ottawa golf course owner Gib Patterson hesitated to use the word “delay ” when discussing when his greens will open this spring, in the midst of some unpredictable weather.

To him, there’s no delay. They’ll open when they open.

“Honest to god, you’ll have weather every day of the year,” Patterson said. “You learn very soon to never worry about the things you have no control over.”

Patterson, who owns Anderson Links, Emerald Links and Cloverdale Links golf clubs, said his clubs will be opening on Saturday, whether Mother Nature likes it or not. The courses may have to wait a bit, but the show must go on for the driving ranges and clubhouses.

“I think if you go back through history, it’s kinda normal,” he said of the wishy-washy weather of late.

He may be wise not to make any assumptions for future conditions. Dave Phillips, senior climatologist for Environment Canada, said that colder-than-average temperatures are unlikely to abate soon. “Unfortunately, nothing looks promising the rest of April,” Phillips said.

With the snowfall over the weekend, plus the freezing rain, it certainly doesn’t look like any improvement is on the horizon.

Besides that, Patterson said he is certainly on track to get everything running soon.

“I think everything’s in great shape, once the soil is right everything will be open fully,” he said. “There’s nothing like my business and the spirit that golfers have that they wanna get started in the spring (right away).”

Scotty Mills, general manager of Twin Elm Rugby Park, said his organization “plays it by ear” on deciding when their five pitches can be used.

“I thought if the weather got warmer we could be on there in a few weeks, but that’s not happening,” he said. “You have to eyeball it, you have to walk on it to find out (if the field is good).”

Normally they wouldn’t open until mid-May and he said they appear to be on track. There is no lingering snow on the ground and he doesn’t expect any new snow to last, which will make a big difference.

He said he’s crossing his fingers there’s not a repeat of last year, where heavy rain saturated the fields and kept them out of action for a while. The mud was so bad, a vehicle last year sunk down to its axles on a patch adjacent to one of the pitches, he said.

Waterlogged fields can be hard to rehabilitate if they’re damaged.

As for public fields, including ball diamonds, the City of Ottawa would only say it’s keeping an eye on them.

“The City is actively monitoring the condition of ball diamonds and sports fields,” said a statement attributed to Dan Chenier, general manager of recreation, cultural and facility services. “A decision regarding the opening dates will be made in the following weeks.”

According to the city’s website, sports fields typically open on May 15. Ball diamonds are usually open on May 1.

While summer sports may have to wait, there was plenty of winter sport over the weekend — at least Camp Fortune, Mont Tremblant and Mont Ste Marie remained open over the weekend. “The longest season in years!” tweeted the Ski Ottawa Twitter account.