Golfing after dark? Of course, as long as the balls are glowing and the fairways are lit like runways
When Don Brisbois teed off with a group of golfers Tuesday evening at Meadow Park Golf Course, his ball quickly disappeared into the rough.
“It’s either in rocks or acorns under that tree,” Brisbois, a Metro Parks employee, said, squinting into the distance. “Can’t see those either.”
Brisbois’ vision is fine. It’s just that he and the other Metro Parks Tacoma employees playing that evening were in near total darkness.
After a pandemic-induced hiatus, Glow Golf is back.
Every Friday and Saturday evening through Dec. 30, Metro Parks is offering the nighttime golfing experience that uses LED-illuminated golf balls, flagsticks and course markers to extend golf well past the cocktail hour.
Test run
In 2017, Metro Parks began staging Glow Golf as an occasional summer time special event. The pandemic shut the program down. Now, it’s back as a regular feature and with bookable tee times.
On Tuesday, Metro Parks employees held a Glow Golf trial run on the course’s Williams Nine executive course.
Brisbois said the balls hit differently compared with regular golf balls, but they still find their targets. He wasn’t taking as much time to line up the ball at night as he normally does in the day. Depth perception is trickier in the dark, he said.
While a waxing moon was setting to the south, Brisbois quickly found his missing ball. The course itself may be harder to see at night but the balls are easy to find, like a glowing UFO in an inky sky.
Scotty Scott was also playing nine rounds Tuesday. His drive to the 5th hole veered to the left and hit a fir tree — or some sort of dark tree. The glowing ball bounced from limb to limb as it fell to the ground, giving the conifer the brief appearance of a doleful Christmas tree.
Scott, the course marshal, was unfazed as he hit the ball out of the rough and toward the tee with its glowing red flagstick. He said he’s been fielding requests to bring Glow Golf back to the course since its disappearance in 2019.
“I get it all the time, people asking when it’s coming back,” Scott said. “So it’s really good to have it back.”
Back by demand
As the course’s well-lit driving range offered some illumination Tuesday, course managers watched the first golfers don glowing necklaces and wrist bands and head out. Fairways were lined with blue lights, like an airport runway.
Glow Golf’s run through the end of the year is a trial period, said Chris Goodman, Meadow Park’s manager.
Tee times can be booked until 11 p.m. Start times will get earlier as the days get shorter, he said.
Erik Haag, Meadow Park’s golf and business operations supervisor, said lack of staffing during the pandemic caused the program’s cancellation. It takes staff time to set up the LED lighting every evening.
Haag is a PGA golf professional. But he’s not too important to play a round of Glow Golf now and then.
“It is completely fun,” Haag said. “It’s completely different.”
The rules are the same as regular golf, the men said, but the mood is different.
“This is all about the good shots,” Goodman said. “This is about the good memories that you’re making. This is this is kind of bringing back the spirit of when you first started playing golf. And that’s what’s been really refreshing about this.”
‘Something magical’
Golf operations specialist Brady Wicke said about half of the night golfers during the previous run of Glow Golf were repeat customers. Many were the same who played the course in daylight. But, he said, they transform at night.
“They’re more laid back. They wouldn’t be as concerned about how fast they’re going to play,” he said. “Instead of coming in with a collared shirt, it’d be a sweatshirt, sweats.”
He delights in briefing the new golfers.
“You see their face light up when you wave your flashlight over the golf ball and it pops right on for them,” Wicke said. “They think it’s just something magical.”
All it takes is a smartphone flashlight to turn the ball on or off. Bonus: golfers get to keep the balls when their game is over. They come in red, pink, blue and green.
“People would just have their collection of them because every time they come they get a new one,” he said. “So they try to get all the colors.”
Wicke advises new golfers to approach the game as they would any other fun pastime.
“Have fun rather than worrying about your score,” he said. “I get to play it tonight and I’m not even bringing a scorecard.”
If you go
What: Glow Golf
When: Friday and Saturday evenings through Dec. 30. Tee times start at sunset and are available until 11 p.m.
Where: Meadow Park Golf Course, 7108 Lakewood Drive West, Tacoma.
Cost: $40 for nine holes. Includes light-up golf ball, glow swag and drink coupon.
Information: metroparkstacoma.org/glowgolf/
This story was originally published September 22, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
