When things are randomly catching fire around you, that’s Mother Nature’s reminder that you should have gotten an earlier tee time.

In Central Kentucky, August usually marks the peak of the summer heat.  Lawns go dormant. Creeks and ponds dry up. Corn sometimes pops on the stalk.

And most of the golf courses get firm and fast, with enough brown overtaking the green in the turf to make the folks at Chambers Bay proud.

(I say usually because we are coming off the wettest July on record and are experiencing unseasonably cool high temperatures for August thus far).

The sweltering temperatures, cloudless sunshine, and dangerous heat indexes combine to make middle of the day golf almost unbearable.

Tee times at dawn become precious commodities to the die-hard golfer.  A quick nine holes in the lengthening shadows of the evening can almost be an enjoyable experience.

I find that if I’m mentally prepared to accept that it is just going to be brutally hot, then sweating through my shirt by the second tee isn’t that big a deal.   Mind you, I just played 72 holes in southern Alabama in late July.

So I put it to you, Dear Readers, how hot is too hot for golf?