The Recreation Centers of Sun City West will be closing its seven golf courses in Maricopa County because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sun City West released a statement via Twitter Tuesday that its administration made the decision to shut down its golf courses effective April 14 to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

It also said the decision was not solely based on Gov. Doug Ducey's "stay at home" order in relation to social distancing guidelines issued on March 30.

"The governor has not mandated the closure of golf courses, but we believe the time has come to take this action to protect against the coronavirus," General Manager Bill Schwind said. "We have taken several measures to prior to this to ensure that our golfers were social distancing themselves, not touching flag poles or the cups, not renting our golf carts. But we want to continue being at the forefront of this, so our courses will close on April 14."

There is no said date of when Sun City West will reopen its golf courses.

There have been reports of Sun City residents who have tested presumptively positive.

However, the Sun City West golf course administration does not know if this includes golfers who recently played there.

"We are not aware of a positive case on staff or among our golfers specifically. We are aware of cases within Sun City West," Sun City West General Services Officer Katy O'Grady told The Republic via email. "Given that and the expectation that Arizona will reach its peak in the next one-to-three weeks, we felt the time was right to close the courses to ensure our residents’ and staff’s safety."

Several golf courses around the state remain open but are taking precautionary measures.

One of the them is the Grand Canyon University Golf Course which shut down from March 21 to April 2.

Since GCU reopened its green, it has limited tee times to create more space between blocks of play among groups of golfers.

Have tips for us? Reach the reporter at dana.scott@azcentral.com or at 480-486-4721. Follow his Twitter @iam_DanaScott.

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