Golf, baseball are here; so is summer

Who isn’t thinking golf and baseball on a day like this – it went up to 80 Tuesday – after a Masters Tournament that produced, with tense excitement, a winner everyone likes and a baseball season that zoomed off to a very entertaining start.

Funny what beautiful weather can do. I can feel the straps of those heavy golf bags irritating my sunburned shoulders under a light t-shirt as I carried doubles at Green Woods on a day such as this in the long ago and I can feel my left palm, near the forefinger swelling and producing a pleasant ache as brother Matt and I had a catch in the driveway, using our Christmas baseball gloves. Ha. The lazy, hazy, crazy days of Summer, I tell you. Early Edition.

And today, well, most area courses are officially open or opening soon.

From the Torrington Country

try Club office came an email on Monday saying that the beautiful TCC track in Goshen would open officially on Tuesday, the 11th “for walkers only’’ but that carts would not be allowed on the course until Wednesday, the 12th. The big mid-march snow storm piled so much snow on the course, the message noted, that even the beautiful drying weather we’ve been having hasn’t rid the layout of all soft spots.

It’s going to be a fine season at TCC, which, as previously reported, will be host to the CWGA’s State Open in late May. Dick Weigold’s in charge of the event for TCC.

At Eastwood Country Club Monday, promanager Tom Keslow was hosing off golf carts when I barged in on him. There were a few players out on the course. “We opened yesterday (the 9TH)’’ he said. While I was there, I had to clear something up. And did:

It’s Eastwood, not Eastwoods. No “s’’ at the end, even though the sign out front carries the extra letter. Below the name on the sign is the name “Mulligan’s Restaurant.’’ Mulligan’s moved in a few months after P-Sam’s moved out.

I felt guilty interrupting Keslow, he’s so busy, but he’s an old friend and didn’t mind. Tom was a star athlete in his day, heck of a pitcher, and I’m not surprised that he wound up teaching golf and minding a pro shop.

Several days before that, I popped in on pro Jared Smith in the pro shop at Green Woods. Smith worked at a couple of clubs in Florida before becoming head pro at my old stamping grounds just over the line in Winsted. The course looks great and Smith, 38, is rarin’ to go. Good luck to him and to Green Woods, which has changed greatly since my caddying days of all those decades past.

At Canaan Country Club Tuesday, Rich Shanley of Salisbury, answered the phone. He owns the place, having bought it in 2003.

“We’ve got to hold off until Friday (the 14th),’’ he said. “It’s just too wet to go out playing, not even walking. We have so much low ground here.’’ He explained that the Blackberry River runs through the second hole and touches several other holes and it might be very damaging to open before Friday.

Pro Fran Marrello has been attending PGA meetings in Georgia, Shanley said, and will resume his duties at CCC on Friday.

But people are champing at the bit. “You wouldn’t believe the number of phone calls we’re getting.’’

Well, I’ve omitted Fairview Farm in Harwinton and a few others. I’ll catch up with them soon.