Individual sports like golf and tennis ok, even encouraged, during coronavirus shutdown
Larry Meisner and Richard Epstein of Raleigh scoured much of the city Friday before finally finding it: an open tennis court.
Meisner and Epstein, both retired, normally play tennis three times a week at the Raleigh Racquet Club. But finding a court during the coronavirus crisis has been a challenge.
The Racquet Club is closed. The two found most tennis courts in the area locked up, and Epstein noted the Pullen Park courts, while open Friday, might soon be the closed with Wake County emergency restrictions going into effect Friday at 5 p.m.
Wake County and other counties in the state are allowing golf courses to remain open as they try to slow the spread of the virus. Unlike golf, tennis is not specifically mentioned in the Wake restrictions although it is an outdoor activity in which social distancing and other safety and hygiene measures can be followed.
Epstein, 69, was born in Manhattan, attended medical school at Columbia University and has family in New York City. He said for many years he was a doctor of internal medicine in Hartford, Conn., and later in Florida. He’s aware of the risks involved with COVID-19, a highly infectious coronavirus.
But getting out Friday, playing tennis with Meisner, didn’t leave him uneasy.
“You have to be careful and you have to be totally aware,” Epstein said. “At the same time, there’s an element of risk in everything we do.”
Epstein wore a glove on his left hand, a reminder, he said, to be aware not to touch his face during play. He had a bottle of sanitizer handy for cleaning. Even when taking time to speak to a reporter Friday, Epstein and Meisner were mindful of keeping an appropriate distance apart.
“Tennis is such a good sport, especially for older people,” said Meisner, 71, a former transportation planner and traffic engineer. “It’s good physically. It’s good to socialize. Especially now.”
Dr. David Nieman, a professor at Appalachian State, is director of the Human Performance Lab at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis and has researched exercise immunology for more than 30 years. He’s a proponent for maintaining outdoor exercise, with safeguards, during the pandemic, saying 30 to 60 minutes a day can develop a stronger immune system that can help offset the effects of the coronavirus and its respiratory ills.
Golf, tennis, jogging, cycling? Nieman believes such outdoor activities are beneficial.
“The most important thing people can do right now other than follow all the hygiene rules is to get out and engage in regular physical activities,” Nieman said in an interview Friday. “If you’re a golfer, I would highly recommend that you follow the hygiene rules while you golf and get out and engage in that activity.
“Exercise will recruit important immune cells from peripheral tissues like your spleen, your sinus, your lymph nodes where the immune cells kind of live. During exercise they get recruited into the bloodstream and circulate through the body like Army Rangers on a mission, where they can better detect and ultimately destroy viruses and bacteria. It’s called improved immune surveillance.”
Nieman said there’s a degree of risk involved. Singles tennis, for example, has less risk than doubles tennis because of the distance maintained between players in singles.
Nieman said doubles tennis “should be fine with trusted, asymptomatic friends following hygienic guidelines in areas of the country with low COVID-19 prevalence. I would not recommend doubles tennis in areas like New York City.”
In Raleigh, finding available tee times for golf is easier than locating open tennis courts.
N.C. State’s Lonnie Poole Golf Course remains open for business and business has remained steady, general manager Chip Watson said Friday. The pro shop is closed and there is no indoor dining, which has caused a financial hit, but Watson said the total golf rounds have not declined — the course in the past has averaged about 100 rounds a day in March, he said.
“Like most, we’ve kind of been living and dying with all the decisions of the state and counties, but the Wake County one was great for us and said the golf courses are deemed as an essential outdoor activity,” Watson said. “They said not only is golf allowed but they encourage people to get out of the house and do it.”
Safety measures being taken by most golf courses including Lonnie Poole include limiting cart use to one player unless with a family member, leaving the flagsticks in during play and removing rakes from bunkers. At Lonnie Poole, orange plastic noodles are attached to the bottom of the flagsticks to make golf balls easier to remove without touching the flagstick or cup.
After rounds, carts are sanitized and sterilized, Watson said. That’s the new normal for golf courses during a pandemic.
In the Durham stay-at-home order, Mayor Steve Schewel said team sports must cease but listed individual sports, including golf and tennis, that could continue “because I think it is important that people get to exercise safely.”
At the press conference announcing the order, Schwel said he did have concerns about social distancing with golf and tennis. The rules and safeguards need to be clear and followed, he said in an interview.
“But you can minimize the risk for a lot of benefit, and it’s worth doing that,” Nieman said. “It’s like going on a hike up a mountain. There are risks. You can trip and fall. But you can be careful and enjoy the trip. That’s where we’re at.”
Virginia Bridges contributed to this story.
