On the links for holidays: Seacoast golfers enjoy unexpected gift of warm December

NORTH HAMPTON — Santa Claus delivered an early Christmas present to golfers across the Seacoast. Unseasonably high temperatures and no snowfall has allowed time to take their clubs out and hit the links before Mother Nature inevitably reverts to her old self.

Temperatures have hovered in the 40s and 50s for most of the past two weeks, and even reached the low 60s last weekend. Local courses that remain open were packed.

Winnacunnet High School athletic director Aaron Abood, an avid golfer, was one who took advantage of the unexpected mid-December weather and got the first tee time last Saturday at Sagamore Hampton Golf Club.

“When we finished, the golf course was packed,” Abood said. “It was like a summer day. The parking lot was full, and the first tee box had a line of people waiting to tee off.”

Abood and his party teed off at 8 a.m., and finished shortly after noon.

“It was a little cold to start, but it warmed up,” he said. “Some of the greens were frozen, but it was still enjoyable. It was nice to be out there.”

Sagamore Hampton Golf Club owner Ty Sanborn has been more than happy to keep his family-owned course open.

“It doesn’t look like we’ll be closing anytime soon, there's no snow in sight,” said Sanborn, whose family has run the course for four generations. “It’s been great. If the weather gets up around the high 40s or low 50s we can see close to 200 golfers a day out here, which is pretty crazy.”

Sanborn called it “a great thing” to remain open.

“The golfers are thrilled,” Sanborn said. “We’re getting the hard-core New England golfers typically out there right now.”

Sanborn has seen a lot of golfers make the drive to Sagamore from central and northern New Hampshire and southern Maine, where courses they usually play have closed for the season.

“That’s a nice benefit for us,” Sanborn said.

Sanborn said the course typically closes around Christmas week each year, but one year, about 10 to 12 years ago, the course was able to stay open and welcomed golfers to play in all of the winter months.

“That’s rare, but it can happen,” he said.

Although Pease Golf Course does a hard stop on the final day of November, regardless of the weather, general manager Scott DeVito spoke about the opportunity to play extra golf at other nearby courses.

"I think people are enjoying the stretch of good weather," he said. "Any time you can play golf outdoors in December in New Hampshire, it's a bonus."

Many others especially enjoyed golfing this month at The Oaks Golf Links in Somersworth, where owner Peter Harrity saw about 250 people last weekend.

And that was certainly a pleasant surprise for Harrity.

"We're not usually open this late (in the year), as much as we try to be," he said. “We were prepared for it, we expected it. The issue that we have at this time of year is that we can't start that early because it's so cold and it gets dark early."

Harrity said the lack of snow is helping many golfers stay out on the courses.

"We usually have snow cover before the middle of December," he said. "And once you get any kind of a heavy snow cover, it kind of closes (the course) down for the year."

Staff reporter Brandon Brown contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Seacoast golfers get the gift of December warm weather