Golf After Dark: It's Par(ty) For The Florida Golf Course At Dubsdread
Eric Connelly reached into his golf bag and pulled out a driver, we think, with a titanium clubhead the size of a toaster and rifled a perfect shot, evidently, down the middle of the fairway.
Though the ball's final destination was uncertain, the piercing peal of the rock-hard ball hitting the massive clubhead was deafening, and his playing partners quickly offered an array of effusive compliments.
"Aw, Stevie Wonder could hit the clubface with this thing," he said, examining his driver.
Actually, Stevie Wonder probably could beat these guys at their own game, since, for once, the singer's well-chronicled handicap might be advantageous, given the ground rules.
Connelly, alongside 70 other night owls, is essentially playing by Braille at Dubsdread Golf Course, an 82-year-old public Florida golf course where something decidedly contemporary is taking place. Finding a revenue stream in the steamy and slow summer months is always a challenge for Florida courses, but venerable old Dubsdread is staying in the black by playing in the black.
On a mineshaft-dark and moonless night last week, Dubsdread was rocking past midnight as the College Park course's residential neighbors peered curiously out their windows. Armed with glow-balls, flashlights and in some cases, enough libations to make their own noses glow, the intrepid golfers were dispatched to participate in a four-player scramble event. These offbeat tournaments have become so popular that course officials are staging them every two weeks and conducting separate corporate outings.
"We've had people calling all day to see if we had any cancellations," said David Evangelista, the general manager, armed with glow-sticks as he set up the course at dusk. "The response has been really cool. We all love it, because it's something completely different."
At 8:45 p.m., on the Friday night preceding Memorial Day weekend, players jumped into their electric carts and went roaming in the gloaming. The differences were immediate from the beginning -- when it's pitch black and you can't see straight, much less crooked, everybody swings the club like Tiger Woods. In theory, anyway.
"Whether you have played the game or not," Evangelista said, "everybody looks bad when they play on a Florida golf course at night. It's an art to try to figure it out."
Night golf with glow-balls has been around for years, but Dubsdread this year found a quirky niche and begun to scratch it furiously. The storied, city-owned layout, with events already set for June 16 and 30, has actually turned away players because of the tournaments' popularity. Because organizers can only use the front nine -- golfers would be forced to twice cross busy Par Avenue in their carts in the dark if the back nine were used -- Dubsdread can accommodate only around 70 players.
"We could probably sign up twice that many if we wanted," Evangelista said.
He might be right, because this is no frat-boy Friday night excursion. The players look like a demographic cross section of the city, ranging in ages from agile kids to gimpy retirees, with more than a smattering of female and minority players, too. For instance, 14-year-old Robert Smith just finished his eighth-grade year and is back to defend the unlikely title he won two weeks earlier with a trio of other teens.
"Made a 45-foot bomb for a birdie on the last hole to win it by one," Smith said.
Come to think of it, doesn't Orlando have a curfew law? Smith has been entrusted to a group with three players between the ages of 26 and 31, including Connelly. Hard to believe that on the Friday night before a three-day weekend, the three oldest guys didn't have anything better to do than chase a little green ball around a pitch-black pasture, to modify an old golf cliche.
"This is only the warm-up," laughed John Iemolo, 31, of Lake Mary, who brought a 12-pack of adult beverages to help keep his swing well-oiled.
Playing after dark in Florida has its advantages, since it rains less frequently, the temperatures are more tolerable and nobody needs sunscreen. But playing at night requires some serious modifications. For their $30 entry fee, each player is given two glow-balls, which are about as pliable as concrete and travel about 80 percent as far as a typical ball. Each cart is equipped with a flashlight and bug spray -- the pterodactyl-sized mosquitoes are thirstier than the players -- and the Dubsdread cart girl has been selling beer at an impressive clip. Glow-sticks are tied to the flagstick and placed in the cup.
Thereafter, the game becomes a matter of blind faith and is full of little surprises. For instance, whenever a player hits a shot fat with a driver, a shower of sparks fly after the club impacts the sand. Epithets seem louder in the dark. Everything is done by feel. Well-struck balls arc through the air like tracer bullets.
"It looks like Iraq," a player observed.
No kidding. A few weeks ago, in an effort to beat the system, some military guys came out while wearing night-vision goggles. "Those guys did real well," Evangelista said, smirking.
In an effort to keep play moving, players use the front set of tees, which measure a cozy 2,200 yards. Still, the nine-hole rounds can last 3 1/2 hours, because at night, a difficult game can be downright infuriating, if not a shade dangerous.
Safety isn't taken lightly. Evangelista spent an hour beforehand sticking glow-sticks in hazardous areas around the course so that nobody fell off any bridges or drove a cart into a watery abyss. As a precaution, Evangelista affixed a glow-light to each cart, reducing the chances that anybody might get brained with a drive before the group preceding it was out of striking range.
Past your bedtime or not, it pays to keep your eyes open. In his first Florida night-golf outing, John Hahn, 29, almost collided with another cart headed in the wrong direction.
"At the last second, I saw his glow-ball in his hand and swerved," Hahn said. "It would have been a head-on wreck on a Florida golf course."
Nonetheless, Hahn chose to remove the glow-light from his electric cart and elected to wear it as a necklace -- perhaps so he could see himself choke, as one wiseguy noted. As it turned out, his foursome finished in a tie for second, one stroke off the winning scramble score of 6 under. The last-place team finished 2 over and received a consolation prize -- free towels.
"The Dubsdread crying towel is a tradition around this Florida golf course," Evangelista said.
Though the ball's final destination was uncertain, the piercing peal of the rock-hard ball hitting the massive clubhead was deafening, and his playing partners quickly offered an array of effusive compliments.
"Aw, Stevie Wonder could hit the clubface with this thing," he said, examining his driver.
Actually, Stevie Wonder probably could beat these guys at their own game, since, for once, the singer's well-chronicled handicap might be advantageous, given the ground rules.
Connelly, alongside 70 other night owls, is essentially playing by Braille at Dubsdread Golf Course, an 82-year-old public Florida golf course where something decidedly contemporary is taking place. Finding a revenue stream in the steamy and slow summer months is always a challenge for Florida courses, but venerable old Dubsdread is staying in the black by playing in the black.
On a mineshaft-dark and moonless night last week, Dubsdread was rocking past midnight as the College Park course's residential neighbors peered curiously out their windows. Armed with glow-balls, flashlights and in some cases, enough libations to make their own noses glow, the intrepid golfers were dispatched to participate in a four-player scramble event. These offbeat tournaments have become so popular that course officials are staging them every two weeks and conducting separate corporate outings.
"We've had people calling all day to see if we had any cancellations," said David Evangelista, the general manager, armed with glow-sticks as he set up the course at dusk. "The response has been really cool. We all love it, because it's something completely different."
At 8:45 p.m., on the Friday night preceding Memorial Day weekend, players jumped into their electric carts and went roaming in the gloaming. The differences were immediate from the beginning -- when it's pitch black and you can't see straight, much less crooked, everybody swings the club like Tiger Woods. In theory, anyway.
"Whether you have played the game or not," Evangelista said, "everybody looks bad when they play on a Florida golf course at night. It's an art to try to figure it out."
Night golf with glow-balls has been around for years, but Dubsdread this year found a quirky niche and begun to scratch it furiously. The storied, city-owned layout, with events already set for June 16 and 30, has actually turned away players because of the tournaments' popularity. Because organizers can only use the front nine -- golfers would be forced to twice cross busy Par Avenue in their carts in the dark if the back nine were used -- Dubsdread can accommodate only around 70 players.
"We could probably sign up twice that many if we wanted," Evangelista said.
He might be right, because this is no frat-boy Friday night excursion. The players look like a demographic cross section of the city, ranging in ages from agile kids to gimpy retirees, with more than a smattering of female and minority players, too. For instance, 14-year-old Robert Smith just finished his eighth-grade year and is back to defend the unlikely title he won two weeks earlier with a trio of other teens.
"Made a 45-foot bomb for a birdie on the last hole to win it by one," Smith said.
Come to think of it, doesn't Orlando have a curfew law? Smith has been entrusted to a group with three players between the ages of 26 and 31, including Connelly. Hard to believe that on the Friday night before a three-day weekend, the three oldest guys didn't have anything better to do than chase a little green ball around a pitch-black pasture, to modify an old golf cliche.
"This is only the warm-up," laughed John Iemolo, 31, of Lake Mary, who brought a 12-pack of adult beverages to help keep his swing well-oiled.
Playing after dark in Florida has its advantages, since it rains less frequently, the temperatures are more tolerable and nobody needs sunscreen. But playing at night requires some serious modifications. For their $30 entry fee, each player is given two glow-balls, which are about as pliable as concrete and travel about 80 percent as far as a typical ball. Each cart is equipped with a flashlight and bug spray -- the pterodactyl-sized mosquitoes are thirstier than the players -- and the Dubsdread cart girl has been selling beer at an impressive clip. Glow-sticks are tied to the flagstick and placed in the cup.
Thereafter, the game becomes a matter of blind faith and is full of little surprises. For instance, whenever a player hits a shot fat with a driver, a shower of sparks fly after the club impacts the sand. Epithets seem louder in the dark. Everything is done by feel. Well-struck balls arc through the air like tracer bullets.
"It looks like Iraq," a player observed.
No kidding. A few weeks ago, in an effort to beat the system, some military guys came out while wearing night-vision goggles. "Those guys did real well," Evangelista said, smirking.
In an effort to keep play moving, players use the front set of tees, which measure a cozy 2,200 yards. Still, the nine-hole rounds can last 3 1/2 hours, because at night, a difficult game can be downright infuriating, if not a shade dangerous.
Safety isn't taken lightly. Evangelista spent an hour beforehand sticking glow-sticks in hazardous areas around the course so that nobody fell off any bridges or drove a cart into a watery abyss. As a precaution, Evangelista affixed a glow-light to each cart, reducing the chances that anybody might get brained with a drive before the group preceding it was out of striking range.
Past your bedtime or not, it pays to keep your eyes open. In his first Florida night-golf outing, John Hahn, 29, almost collided with another cart headed in the wrong direction.
"At the last second, I saw his glow-ball in his hand and swerved," Hahn said. "It would have been a head-on wreck on a Florida golf course."
Nonetheless, Hahn chose to remove the glow-light from his electric cart and elected to wear it as a necklace -- perhaps so he could see himself choke, as one wiseguy noted. As it turned out, his foursome finished in a tie for second, one stroke off the winning scramble score of 6 under. The last-place team finished 2 over and received a consolation prize -- free towels.
"The Dubsdread crying towel is a tradition around this Florida golf course," Evangelista said.
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