ORLANDO — For a lot of us, golf is a night game. This website is owned by a company called 8AM GOLF and that’s a lovely image right there, on the first tee at 8 in the morn, birds singing, coffee kicking in, all that promise ahead. But what about the other side of the day, especially now with the extra hour of dusk light? What about nightfall golf? My press-tent pal Bill Fields has a new book called A Quick Nine Before Dark. Exactly.
When play resumed Saturday afternoon after an hour-long rain delay, here in the third round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, Collin Morikawa and his caddie, Mark Urbanek, found themselves doing some math. When they made the turn, they realized they had two hours of daylight left, if that, on a hard course that doesn’t lend itself to quick play. The good news was that Morikawa’s playing partner was Rickie Fowler, one of the fastest players on Tour. They were the last group to get in, to finish their third round.
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Morikawa is at nine under par, with Cam Young and Sepp Straka. They have played 54 holes in this Signature event and will all be able to sleep in Sunday morning. The two players ahead of them, Akshay Bhatia (11 under) and Daniel Berger (13 under) will be on the course at 8 a.m. Sunday, when play resumes. Sunday will be a long day’s journey into night for those two. Less so for the other chasers.
Fowler and Morikawa were more than happy to sign Saturday night, knowing they earned a later wake-up call Sunday morning. Michael Bamberger
Morikawa was asked if he liked playing dusk golf, particularly as a kid.
“I think those days, when you were out there for a long time, you got a lot out of it,” he said. “Not just practicing, but having fun. You’re probably out there with some buddies, screwing around, getting in a couple more chips, a couple more putts, just to get it out of the system.”
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Turns out, that’s good practice for contending in PGA Tour events, too.
Fowler and Morikawa holed out on 18 around 6:35 p.m., then walked through a dark tunnel under a grandstand. They crossed a road on their way to scoring and ended their workday, or nearly did. All that was left was to sign autographs, which Morikawa did at hyper-speed. Fowler signed at a languid pace, chatting up kids, posing for snaps, all in a manner that would have made Arnold Palmer proud. Morikawa had borrowed a Sharpie from Fowler and when he was done with it returned it to its original place, in Fowler’s back left pocket. They bade each other good night, in a manner of speaking.
Later, dude.
Yeah.
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Something like that. The kids were still calling for Rickie by name.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@golf.com.
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