Unseasonably warm weather has golfers elbowing out cross-country skiers

It's so warm in Calgary that golfing season started up again this weekend. The city opened up both Shaganappi Point and Maple Ridge golf courses for winter play on temporary greens from Friday to Sunday.

Vicente Avendano's friend gave him the heads-up, so they snagged a tee-time at Shaganappi Point on Sunday.

"He told me, 'Hey, guess what, I have a place to go play golf ... Really? At this time?' So it was a surprise," said Avendano.

Usually at this time of year cross-country skiing is well underway on the course just south of the Bow River. The snow and cold temperatures that hit the city near the end of October had the crews out preparing Shaganappi for cross-country skiing, but the return to warmer temperatures put that work on hold and brought out the temporary greens and pins.

Linda McLaughlin is the vice-president and grooming operations lead with Shaganappi Nordic Operations. She said golfers were on the course until snow hit in late October.

"People wanted to start skiing that week, and it was looking really good. But then we looked at the forecast, we had a two-week Chinook," she said. 

McLaughlin's volunteer-powered team has a lot of work to do when it comes to prepping golf courses for cross-country skiers, which is why she said it's important to get the timing right.

Their plan was to finish prepping the course for cross-country skiers this weekend.

She said the rapid weather changes melted all the snow, which changed plans. McLaughlin said that this is the first time she's ever had to stop winterizing and preparing a course for skiers so that golfers could come back. 

"To my knowledge that [has] not happened since before the mid-80s," McLaughlin said. "It's so funny, because there's a lot of cross-country skiers that really don't like that it's a golf course.

"They don't like sharing their turf."

Morgan Spenrath said he felt lucky the snow didn't stick around. He was also getting a round in at Shaganappi on Sunday.

"It'd be nice to keep this going for a few more weekends, keep golfing in November. Prefer that to cross-country," Spenrath said.

According to David Stanfel, a lead meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, normal daily high temperatures for this time of year are around three degrees. For the coming week, Environment Canada is calling for highs of between five and 10 degrees.

And he said this warmer-than-normal weather looks likely to stick around for a while.

"The next week or two are looking quite warm compared to those seasonal normals, like five to 10 degrees above normal," Stanfel said.

Emilie Letourneau was sipping a pumpkin spice latte on a walk with friends next to the Bow River in Parkdale on Sunday. She said this warm weather in November takes some getting used to.

"It feels weird to walk around and there's not snow on the ground," Letourneau said.

But Stanfel from Environment Canada said we should enjoy this warmth while it lasts, because that won't be forever.

"It is southern Alberta and it is getting closer to December. So we will see winter return eventually."