“With the coming of spring, I am calm again.” — Gustav Mahler.

Fordham welcomes spring in much the same way every year.  After months of near-complete desolation, Eddie’s fills up with students. Some students lie on blankets and read.  Some just stand and talk.  Some, feeling constrained by a full season of wearing layers, break free from their cotton prisons and play Frisbee shirtless.  The spring immigration to Eddie’s is a tradition unlike any other.

For some Fordham students, however, that phrase brings to mind something else entirely.  This weekend is The Masters — the most prestigious golf tournament in America — and with it, its TV tagline: “A tradition unlike any other.”  The Masters marks the de facto beginning of the golf season, especially here in the Bronx, where playing anytime before early April often leads to cold hands, strong winds and a bad game.

Wait, golfing in the city?  Here in the concrete jungle?

“Golf and New York City are not found anywhere close to each other in the thesaurus, but we find a way to manage,” said Ryan Donahue, FCRH ’14.  As a member of the Fordham golf team, Donahue has golfed all over the Bronx.   “I like golfing in the Bronx,” he said. “You meet a lot of interesting characters.”

There are four golf courses spread across three facilities in the Bronx.  Luckily for Fordham golfers on a budget, they are all public courses with relatively low greens fees.  The Van Cortlandt Park Golf Course is the most accessible from Rose Hill, located in the expansive Van Cortlandt Park in the Northwest Bronx.

From campus, it is a 30 minute ride on the BX9 and a short walk to the nation’s oldest public golf course.  The course has been featured in movies like Wall Street and The Greatest Game Every Played and is a bargain for all its history.  Fees vary, but this week it was $38 for 18 holes after noon.  For those lacking the room in their college residences, this course, like most, also rents out clubs for a fee.

Next to Van Cortlandt is the 9-hole Mosholu Golf Course.  A short walk from the northern end of the 4 train, Mosholu is easy to get to by public transportation as well.  Its prices are similar to those of its neighbor.  This weekend, it is $28 for nine holes and $38 for 18 holes.

The northeast Bronx’s Pelham Bay Park holds a pair of courses as well: Pelham Bay and Split Rock.  Donahue plays the courses often with the team and has some insight: “Pelham Bay is wide open, [but] Split Rock was carved through Jumanji like settings.  Split Rock is actually a good test, while Pelham Bay is where you want to go if your playing ‘Army golf’ [a term for poor golf, with the balls flying “right, left, right, left”].  You’ll spend some time picking thorns out of your legs if you go astray at Split Rock.”

Both courses run a little more expensive than the others in the borough.  Prices vary, but rounds this week ran from $40-$60.  They are also a little harder to get to by public transportation, requiring a transfer from the BX12 to the BX29 and a long walk through the park.

If those courses are not enough, the borough will welcome another public course at Ferry Point Park next year.  The course will be built by the city along the water on a landfill near the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge in the Southwest Bronx.

Donahue hopes for a shorter trip: “If anyone wins the lottery, they should buy the Botanical Gardens and turn it into the Fordham Links.” Nature lovers may not appreciate his dream, but Rose Hill’s golfers will certainly understand his enthusiasm with the coming of spring.