Nothing says springtime in Chicago like dusting off your clubs and heading to your favorite golf course.

Bill Bettin, Bob Rickert, John Torri, and Ron Olsen hit one of several greens around Monarch Landing, where they live.

For one group of Monarch Landing neighbors, weekly golf games have become a tradition they look forward to resuming each year during the warmer months. Every Wednesday morning around 7 a.m., Bob Rickert, John Torri, Bill Bettin and Ron Olsen tee off at one of five different area golf courses.

“We are really fortunate to have such a selection all within 10 miles [of Monarch Landing],” Rickert says. “We tend to go on a cycle, where we try to alternate courses every week.” His favorite is Settler’s Hill in Batavia, Ill. The course was built on top of a landfill, which creates hills and varying elevations not typically found in the notoriously flat Midwest. The foursome also plays at St. Andrews Golf and Country Club in West Chicago, Fox Bend Golf Course in Oswego, Phillips Park Golf Course in Aurora, and Tamarack Golf Club in Naperville.

The active group always plays 18 holes, Rickert says, giving them ample opportunity to get some exercise and enjoy the outdoors.

Illinois certainly isn’t known for its great weather, but the Monarch Landing golfers manage to make the most of the temperate months and stretch the season as long as they can. Last year, they didn’t put their clubs away until just before Thanksgiving, and Rickert says they were able to hit the driving range this year on an unseasonably warm and sunny March afternoon.

“We almost make it an eight-month season, so who needs to go south?” Rickert jokes.

Forming friendships on the green

Rickert and his golf buddies all have similar handicaps and share the same attitude about the game, he says. They don’t take themselves too seriously or play for money.

“What is really great about it is the camaraderie,” Rickert says. “We tend to mix very well.”

That sense of camaraderie is exactly what drew Bettin, the newest member, into the foursome. Bettin met Torri last summer in Monarch Landing’s parking garage. Torri was putting away his clubs, and Bettin struck up a conversation about golf. As luck would have it, Torri and his friends were looking for a fourth, so Bettin joined their Wednesday morning golf club.

Bettin says the weekly golf outings also give the four men a chance to talk and get to know each other better.

“We’re all involved in different things, so that makes it interesting,” Bettin says. “And we all catch up on what the others are doing.”

Monarch Landing is an Erickson retirement community in Naperville, Illinois. Erickson manages a network of 19 communities nationwide that combine a maintenance-free, active lifestyle with social activities, amenities, and medical offerings proven to improve both physical and mental health.