Warm winter has meant more golf played on Hilton Head, nationally

Difficult as it might be to appreciate after a weekend of freezing temperatures in the Lowcountry and Northern climes digging out from a massive winter storm, there was a lot of golf being played just a month ago.

An extraordinary amount, in fact.

Record-breaking warmth sent November and December rounds skyrocketing as courses from New England to Midwest stayed open long past their usual closing dates. And despite a potential dip in tourist rounds, local golfers made up any lag on Beaufort County courses.

"With good weather, the people here had an opportunity to play more rounds of golf," said Clark Sinclair, director of golf at Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort.

Golf Datatech, the research firm whose monthly rounds-played report is considered the industry's measuring stick, reports that November rounds in the Hilton Head market were up 4.4 percent over the previous November.

That may not seem like much, especially compared with jumps of 80 percent or more in places such as New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota. But it shows the market held its own even as Northern golfers flocked to their home courses without grabbing a jacket.

"If it stays warm later in the Northeast and upper Midwest," said Golf Datatech founding partner Tom Stine, "then the snowbirds tend to go south later. That ends up being a negative effect on South Carolina, Georgia, Florida."

December numbers won't be ready at Golf Datatech for another couple of weeks, but other indicators hint at another healthy month.

GolfNow, an online reservation service and Golf Channel subsidiary, reports a jump of more than 3,000 November and December bookings in the Hilton Head market over its 2014 numbers. That comes out to a 42 percent increase.

To be clear, GolfNow and Golf Datatech don't take exactly the same measure. Golf Datatech looks at all the golf that's being played -- crunching numbers from some 4,000 courses across the nation -- while GolfNow can only go by what's being booked through its website.

But even factoring in general business growth at GolfNow, November and December were positive signs.

By comparison, the increase in 2014's final two months was just 27 percent over 2013. Hilton Head, by the way, is the No. 1 South Carolina market for visits to the site.

"What the weather produced is a lot of day-of-play decisions," suggested John Farrell, Sea Pines Resort's longtime director of golf.

"Golfers from Savannah to Beaufort, those are people more impacted by the weather. If it's a good day, let's go. For a (vacationer) sitting in a villa -- if the weather is remotely good, they're going to play."

A sampling of Lowcountry courses mostly returned accounts of slight gains, though Palmetto Dunes reported a 23 percent increase in December. The Christmas weekend certainly helped, with four straight days of highs reaching 80 from Dec. 24-27.

"Christmas week was really good, which we count on," Sinclair said. "That's a high percentage of our (volume for the) entire month of December."

Until this past week, he noted, the resort had experienced only two frost delays this winter. "That's hardly anything," he said. "Last year we had something like 16."

One possible hidden drawback to the extended warmth, though, was frequent rain that has kept fairways -- really, any Lowcountry soil -- soaked since October.

"Our golf courses are still wet," said Bill Layman, general manager for the six Brown Golf Management clubs in the area. "We've had a number of days that were cart-path-only at some of our facilities, and that's a deterrent."

The last two months of 2015 brought boom tee times up north, where golfers from Maine to the Dakotas were taking advantage of temperatures that sometimes pushed 70 degrees. Wisconsin and Minnesota saw November rounds played triple, and Michigan was close.

Stine himself was in Ohio for Christmas, where a high of 68 degrees beckoned golfers outside. "We could have easily played in shirtsleeves," he said. "We could have played that way all week."

Just how things might shake out following this weekend's snow blanket remains to be seen, though it's a fair bet the Lowcountry warms up faster than New England.

"We all know good weather is better for golf than bad weather," Stine said.

This story was originally published January 25, 2016 at 12:48 AM with the headline "Warm winter has meant more golf played on Hilton Head, nationally."