Littleton High School boys golf coach Kevin Burdick hopes his players are taking advantage of the fact that golf courses around the Denver area are open.

“I’ve had contact with players, it’s difficult, but I’ve seen a couple players at the golf course with their dad or whoever,” said Burdick. “All the courses are open, some are fully open, some you can’t go into the pro shop and there are restrictions, but golf courses are now open so they should be out there.

“You can do that fairly safe with social distancing and maintaining your space from other people with minimum touching of things. So hopefully they are out there playing. The email I sent out to them and their parents was obviously with their permission, and mom and dad, if they think it is safe, get on out and hit some balls and start playing.”

Burdick, who is also coach of the Lions’ girls golf team and a teacher at the school, has been dealing the COVID-19 pandemic since last spring.

“We haven’t seen anything like this since the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic,” said Burdick. “I know it is causing basically everything to shut down. It was a strange way to finish the school year last spring. It was very bizarre. We still don’t know what next school year is going to look like.

“The district is putting together plans as we speak. They should have ideally at least three different game plans for starting school, as normal, online, or some kind of hybrid mix. I’m not sure what it will look like.”

He can’t say for sure what high school golf will look like if it starts in August.

“You saw CHSAA (Colorado High School Activities Association) put sports together in tiers,” he said. “Golf is in a tier one category, meaning that we might be able to start golf on time because again of the social distancing and it is less likely to spread illnesses than, say, football or basketball with physical contact.

“I’m going to send an email out to the kids and parents updating them on `here’s the latest from CHSAA so let’s prepare to start on time Aug. 4.’ But things can change tomorrow with the state of this illness.”

Burdick, who had a young boys team last year, is looking forward to this season if golf gets the OK to tee it up.

“This is something beyond our control so we should follow the safety guidelines, avoid big crowds and try to make the best that we can out of this mess,” he said. “The CHSAA can come up with all the plans they want, but if school districts aren’t going to have in-class sessions, that puts a kibosh on their sports plans, I assume. There are a lot of unknowns and things can quickly change.”

Burdick will have a more experienced team this season with three seniors, a junior and a bunch of sophomores, plus freshmen who plan to try out for the team.

Keegan Gore, Tanner Cikaluk and Anders McCarthy are the Littleton seniors and junior Emmett Loomis returns as the team’s No. 1 player from a year ago.

“Hopefully we will be more competitive than last year’s young group of guys,” said Burdick. “I’m looking so much towards the season.”