Memorial Day should equal free golf for Veterans

Another Memorial Day’s come and gone with most people blissfully barbecuing away with little clue about what the long weekend’s really about.

Golf should step up as an industry and remind everyone. Veterans should play for free at any course of their choosing over Memorial Day weekend. What better way to show appreciation for the men and women who’ve served than giving up one of your precious weekend tee times?

Some courses have already embraced the idea. The Legacy Golf Courses at Cragun’s in Minnesota have been letting veterans play for free on Memorial Day weekend for years. But this should be a industry wide trend rather than a newsworthy anomaly.

Sure, Memorial Day is an important weekend for course revenue. But sometimes doing the right thing, building some goodwill for golf, means more to the longterm bottom line. And if it’s impossible to do it on this holiday weekend, set aside another weekend (when it’s not 20 degrees out) where vets play your course for nothing more than a handshake.