Shooting lights out in more ways than one
Dear golf fans
Many years ago I was invited to Randpark golf course to take part in, believe it or not, nine holes of “floodlit golf”. That the idea never took off doesn’t surprise me. After all, we have an unreliable electricity supplier in Eskom and when you are able to get enough power to burn your lights, they charge you an arm and a leg.
Besides, the game is difficult enough in broad daylight without adding the handicap of semi-darkness. I hacked my way through five holes before retiring to the pub, which was a far more pleasurable experience.
Last weekend in the Turkish Airlines Open, a Rolex Series event on the European Tour, six of the golfers in action made it through to a play-off after all finishing on 20-under par.
I only ended up watching because I switched channels in time to see South Africa’s Erik van Rooyen drain a monster uphill putt on the 18th to record an eagle that elevated him to joint first place on the leaderboard.
I can’t stand those ankle-bearing trousers that Van Rooyen wears – they remind me of the tracksuit pants my grandfather used to wear with the elasticated leg-ends. I believe the official term
Guy Hawthorne
for them is “joggers” and as far as I am concerned that’s exactly where they belong … on the legs of someone running away from me.
But Van Rooyen is a decent golfer (he has already won on the European circuit this year) and the Springboks’ World Cup win had heightened my sense of patriotism, so I decided to watch.
The first play-off hole claimed three victims, one of which was Van Rooyen, and I very nearly switched channels. But it was getting gloomier by the minute and when I heard they might use floodlights to complete the playoff, I decided to hang around.
Englishman Tyrell Hatton eventually triumphed on the fourth extra hole when young Austrian Matthias Schwab missed a short putt for par. By then it was so gloomy that many of the spectators in the stand probably never got to see the winning moment, and there are some wonderful photographs of Hatton receiving his trophy with a pitchblack sky behind him dotted with floodlights.
Even the on-course commentator, whose name escapes me, said at one stage that he would love to describe to viewers where Schwab’s approach to the green had finished, but he couldn’t “because it’s really, really gloomy out here”.
I’m happy the players agreed to continue under lights for the sake of the paying spectators, but I feel for them.
I have first-hand experience of what it is like and it is no fun, especially not when you are playing for $2 million (or just less than R30 million) – the richest purse on the European Tour.
The things people will do for a few bucks …