Golf season teeing off

Buffalo, NY (WBEN) With the snow melting and temperatures starting to warm up, golf season is getting started in WNY.

Opening day at Seneca Hickory Stick Golf Course is set for Wednesday. "We've been ready to go for a while, even with the poor weather we've been having. We've been working around that to prepare the course," says general manager and director of golf Brady Clendening. "I think our area hasn't been hit as bad as some of the other areas around Buffalo, but so we're in pretty good shape overall and definitely ready to open, but it will be pretty wet." He adds it will likely be carts only.

While golfers aren't as concerned about temperatures, Clendening says he has one concern. "It's more about the overnight temperatures being higher than freezing. We don't want the ground frozen and people walking on the course and on those temperatures. But as far as people wanting to come out and play, if it's a 40 degree nice day with sun, they'll come out and play. So we'll probably still see a couple of those as well going forward," says Clendening.

Clendening says the greens have been cut, but more work remains. "We had to hand mow the greens to avoid track marks from the tractors on the on the greens themselves. Due to the wet condition, soft conditions, we want to make sure we have the fairways cut at least once before everybody this the fairways and the rough is still starting to grow in, so we're going to be getting to that as we go through the month of April. As far as everything else goes, the clubhouse is ready to go. We're ready to welcome our guests back, our casino patrons and our regular guests," adds Clendening.

He says everybody is chomping at the bit to get out after that tough winter, and golf is hopefully continuing to grow through the years.