Golf courses and outdoor sports in Ontario are being shut down by new restrictions

Golf courses will officially be closing across Ontario as part of a new spate of lockdown restrictions being introduced over the next few days.

Premier Doug Ford revealed details of the new measures on Friday afternoon, including the fact that courses, basketball courts, soccer fields, playgrounds, campgrounds and other outdoor amenities will be immediately shuttered to the public.

Are golf courses really hotspots that I wasn’t aware of? Are playgrounds a problem? Is this man truly fucked in the head?

— Break80 (@joekool59) April 16, 2021

Also taking effect right away is an extension of the state of emergency and stay-at-home order — which will now last six weeks, until at least May 20, after being put into effect on April 8 — as well as further capacity limits for retail stores, and a change in gathering limits from five people outdoors to only members of the same household.

Starting April 17, police provincewide will have the authority to pull over or otherwise stop any citizen to verify where they live and their reason for being out of their house.

Please help Ontario @fordnation has lost his mind. His answer is to not vaccinate essential workers, leave infected factories open, no sick days, close playgrounds, golf courses and order police to pull you over everytime you leave the house. Are we all ready to snap?!

— Libby Knights (@LibbKnights) April 16, 2021

Acceptable purposes under the stay-at-home order include "essential" activities like going to work, getting groceries, medication or exercise, or attending a medical appointment.

And as of Monday, there will be new protocols to dissuade inter-provincial travel, including checkpoints at border crossings. Ford also asked the federal government to impose further action at international border crossings, where thousands are still coming into the country.

The only good thing about closing the playgrounds & golf courses is it will hopefully piss off a good chunk of Dofo's support base #COVID19ON

— PSR B1257+12 😷 (@psrb125712) April 16, 2021

Ford's move to keep greens open when he imposed a full provincial lockdown and then the stay-at-home order earlier this month was met with some criticism, especially seeing as other outdoor sports and outdoor, socially distanced fitness classes were prohibited.

Most would argue that either all of these types of activities should have been allowed to continue, or none of them.

Other criticisms include the bungled vaccine rollout that is not only painfully slow and limited but also completely confusing and the lack of proper restrictions in factories and otherr workplaces that are known to be high risk settings for outbreaks.