Hi Dino...
I am not sure if I can provide a proper answer to your question regarding the idea of a start and stop season vs a complete layoff.
Personally, living in Central Ontario, I have never had the option of a start and stop winter. All I have ever had was the winter lay-off where my golfing in the winter was limited to some putting and chipping in the basement. The closest I have gotten to the start and stop was when I would head south to Myrtle Beach for a few weeks during the winter to get in some golf with the boys.
I guess I would have to say that I would certainly like to have a season or two of start and stop so that I could truly provide an answer based on experience. For now I will simply have to say that I really am not a fan of putting the clubs away for upwards of 5 full months of the year. It does make it hard to keep the handicap down when you have that long of a layoff every year....

Hey Dino, Edmonton here. It was plus 10-15 no snow most of February. No courses open. (I have only played in Lethbridge in Alberta in February). Now when it should be warming up it's minus 15-minus 20. Grrr. Or Brrr. Time to move to a warmer climate. Nice to be able to play until 10:30 at night during the summer but sometimes just hate waiting for playable weather.

Hi Darius,
Thanks for the observations - comments. My apologies for the lack of clarity. I sometimes find myself distracted between multiple tasks and lose the flow of my thoughts, etc. :-) I was merely thinking that sometimes the start and stop of golfing ... might be "worse" sometimes than merely having a definitive start to the season.

Where I grew up, golf season typically started in mid to late April ... but then once it was open, we really never had snow or other "false starts" to the golf season.

I also know many people that will only start playing golf in late April/early May and then they put the clubs away shortly after Labour Day.

So, it had me wondering what my fellow TT'ers thought about golf season and false starts and whether you would prefer to just wait a bit before starting your golf season to avoid false starts and whether you preferred to just focus on other activities in the non-golfing season. Or, would you put up with the "false starts" just for the opportunity to get out and play.

I started the topic, because I like most of you, have never really had the opportunity to play much throughout the winter - unless I went away down south. Enjoying golf like I am sure that you all do, I found it difficult to play in the winter for just a short period (whether it be in California or perhaps Florida) and then retreat back to winter again and waiting for Spring to finally settle in.

I just sometimes found that despite wanting the snow to melt, I thought that it also did my mind and body some good to be preoccupied with something else, like hockey, etc. and take a "break" from golf.

This past winter here in the Vancouver area, we had one of the longer stretches of winter and snow for quite a long period (by Vancouver's standards) then it warmed up with great weather ... so I took advantage and started "ramping up" my season thinking that "hey, great, winter here is over -- lets get golf started!"
Only my enthusiasm literally got "snowed on" as we had a couple of late blasts of snow/winter :-).

I hope this is a little more clear -- at least I have had one cup of coffee t ostart my morning before writing this post!

Hey Dino,
Kitchener Ontario. I prefer the normal winter to give the joints a rest (forced time off lol) but on Feb 23rd I got to play 18 holes at a fantastic golf course (Tarandowah) and must admit it was a great break in the winter and a "fix" to break it up. I am heading to Myrtle beach next week for 10 rounds and hopefully within a few weeks we are on the links a few weeks after that. So its kinda start stop but my goodness......when playing that one round it sure does leave the bug in the system.
Cheers Team!
James G