Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. So we signed up for night golf. Having never done this before, it sounded interesting. We had no earthly idea what night golf entailed…so we just showed up at the Morro Bay Golf Course to find out.
Basically night golf started at 9 p.m. We were given special golf balls that had a cylinder drilled through the ball. Into that space we inserted a rod that came in a small package. To activate the rod, it needed to be bent. When bent, it glowed green. Well, that’s all well and good so once we walked to the 17 hole to start our 9 hole tourney, Ray teed up and hit his ball. Well, no one told us that the light should be perpendicular to the club head. So, when Ray teed off, the green rod sailed about 20 yards and we never did find the ball. What to do? Well, we tried calling the club house. No answer. There were no spare balls. Ray was miffed.
I teed it up and went about 50 yards. Yikes. This was not going to be easy.
On the 18th hole (our second hole), my green rod flew out and we never found my ball. Ray called the club house. Things were getting tense. No answer.
When we arrived at the club house, we got two more special balls. That’s when we found out that the ball needed to be positioned properly. So, off we went on the 10th hole. Things were going better now. Except that I couldn’t hit the ball. It would just veer off to someplace I was not aiming toward. A real test of patience and perseverance.
And did I mention that the fog rolled in? Yes, it did. About 8:00 p.m. So that full moon tonight…was obscured by the fog and so we couldn’t see anything. Ray downloaded an iphone app for a flashlight. Chuck, our playing partner called home and had Ted bring a flashlight which was delivered on the 10 tee box. The thing was though, if you weren’t right next to the light source because you had inadvertently hit your ball into the trees, you couldn’t see the clubs in the bag. Not that club selection was that important because a lot of our shots were either way too short or way too long. The flagstick had a green rod on it that was about 8 inches long. And there was a green light in the cup. Other than that, it was pretty darn dark out there. See picture above. Like that.
But I digress. When we got to the 12th hole, I finally hit a good drive. So did Ray. We hit in the same vicinity. This introduced a problem because we did not know if the first ball we came to belonged to him or me. Chuck said it was mine. So I hit it and it careened off my club and headed toward to the sprinklers. Did I mention that the sprinklers were on? For some reason, they were WATERING THE COURSE. So as I approached the sprinklers, Ray was yelling at me to just go pick it up and bring it to a place where the sprinklers did not reach. Well, that was all well and good except that I really could not see through my glasses because they got pelted by water as I approached the sprinklers. Then I got hit by the sprinkler as it came back from where it had just been. My pants got soaked. Then while trying to dodge the other sprinkler (there were two right together), I got nailed by that sprinkler on my pants again. OMG. Does the term drowned rat mean anything to you?
So, Ray couldn’t find his ball. Well, I didn’t much care because I was drenched and it was cool. So Ray fished around in his bag and found some rain pants. So, there I was in the middle of the 12th fairway taking off my nice light weight wool pants and putting on some old nylon rain pants that had no pockets (while the guys behind us was hitting into us). And Chuck who had gone on ahead, started back toward us with his flashlight aimed at us. While my pants were off. Ray said, “Great, you’re undressed and now he points the light our way.” Once I had the rain pants on, I put my tees into what I thought was the pocket and they all fell to the bottom on the pant leg which was elasticized and there they stayed until I bent over to retrieve them. That happened twice. Meanwhile, Ray was screaming at the guys behind us, “We are in the middle of the 12th fairway and you almost hit us!”. They yelled back, “What?”. Ray repeated himself at a higher decibel level than before. They yelled back, “Okay”.
By now I was toast. My glasses were spotted with water, my pants had no pockets, I had no ball. Uncle. I called it a day and talked Ray into giving me his cell phone and the car keys and I trudged back up to the hill to the club house. And that’s where I sat from 10:15 until 11:15 waiting for Mr. J. Seems he and Chuck came up on a five-some and had to wait on every hole.
On the way home we decided night golf was for young stupid people. Though I did make a great putt on 11!!! And Ray remarked that it was pretty amazing that he hits his woods (golf clubs) better in the dark than in the light. Uhmmmmm.
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