8:52 a.m.
Sunday, May 10, 2020 8:55 am

With all the sniping state Democrats have leveled at the governor the past week, you'd think we were inside the beltway, but that's not what this column is about.

While we think the governor has done a good job being transparent and reasoned in a situation more than one official has summed up as "building a plane as we fly it," we have to say amid the fractured new lives we lead his policy on golf courses landed in a sand trap.

The only one making him look good is Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who has ordered that Maine golfers only play in the county they live in.

So here's the club rules. If you live in Maine, you get to play at your local golf course. If you live in New Hampshire you can play at any course statewide, same for Massachusetts.

But none of the three states are allowing out-of-staters to play, although several public courses in Massachusetts told us to come on down.

"What am I gonna do, ask you for your ID?" quipped one pro shop employee. "What's your credit card for a guaranteed tee time?"

Now, if you just think about it governor, you've got with golf what you are desirous of from Maine and Massachusetts with regard to beaches: a level playing field that will NOT drive crazed and infected golfers to the Granite State from either Maine or Massachusetts. You basically have a zero sum game.

And governor, if you didn't know, in golf the lower the score the better, so zero sum game's gotta be pretty good.

So if all the golf courses are open to local residents, what drives the surge if the three states just say they're open to anyone, especially if they all have the same social distancing restrictions in place, which they do.

Connecticut opened its golf courses in March. New York, the epicenter of the pandemic, never closed its golf courses.

By the way, are state police or the bureau of liquor enforcement manning the entrances to New Hampshire state liquor stores?

They aren't in Rochester where I saw a guy get out of a car with a Massachusetts plate, walk right up to me with no mask (unthinkable!) and ask, "Hey I'm from Mass., do I need a mask to go in there."

I should have said, no, but you have to quarantine for two weeks before you can go in and get your booze, but I just said, "No."

I probably should have followed him in and screamed, "that guy's from Massachusetts, and he's got no mask" but I didn't. I just threw my bottle in the back seat, came home and poured myself a drink.