Every golfer knows the thrill of chasing the sun, the time-honored practice of squeezing in more holes before the day fades for good.
I’d like to recommend a younger tradition: golf after sunset, when the other stars are out.
This isn’t something you can do just anywhere. Even under clear skies and a full moon, night golf depends on artificial light. Such on-course extras are relatively common in golf-mad, land-cramped countries like Korea, where unmet demand spills into the evening, and in desert climates where no one wants to play while the sun is set on broil.
Here in the U.S., though? Night golf is catching on, but it’s harder to come by. One place you can find it is Cabot Citrus Farms.
Inside Cabot Citrus Farms: 48 hours at the most un-Florida of Florida golf resorts
By:
Josh Sens
A destination resort on Florida’s Nature Coast, roughly an hour north of Tampa, Citrus Farms provides a banquet of golf from dawn to dusk, with two full-length 18-holers, the Roost and the Karoo, and a pair of short courses, The Squeeze and The Wedge. The Squeeze has 10 holes that range from 100 to 550 yards. The Wedge, by contrast, is an 11-hole, par-3 layout — and the only course on the property designed to come alive after dark.
That’s where I found myself not long ago, teeing it up with a colleague as twilight fell. Since it was cocktail hour, we’d brought a few drinks with us, along with a small quiver of clubs stuffed into the lightweight carry bags that come with your greens fee. No need to haul a full set on an outing of this kind. If you find yourself grinding, you’re getting it wrong. Night golf is for shifting into mellow mode.
You know those blinding floodlights used to illuminate roadside construction projects? The Wedge doesn’t have those. Its greens and tees are cast in a soft, golden glow, just enough to let you see exactly what you need. At first, the shadows might play tricks. Is that really a ball between your feet, or a shimmering phantasm? But it only takes a moment for your eyes to adjust, and a few swings to recognize that you’re playing the same game you’ve always loved, freed of the pressure that so often nags you.
That, at its core, is the beauty of night golf. Once the sun is gone, the expectations go with it, leaving only the pleasures of the game. There’s no score to protect. No pace to keep. No sense that you should be somewhere else. Just the feeling that you’re getting away with something but guilty of nothing.
Our round breezed by. By the time we finished, cocktail hour had given way to dinnertime, which seemed about right. Night golf is gravy. It also fits neatly with the game’s shape-shifting away from convention toward more relaxed forms: shorter courses, looser structures, and experiences built less around tradition than around pure enjoyment. Call it golf for a younger generation, except that it’s open to anyone. The Wedge exemplifies that, day and night. As the kids might put it, the course is lit. Literally.
