AT first glance, night-time golf sounds like a non-starter. Given that it's hard enough to keep track of the ball in broad daylight when it's sliced down the fairway, you might ask how would you follow its progress in the dark. One answer is already at hand, however: an LED-studded golf ball that lights up when struck, and which stays lit while you find it.
Furthermore, as our sports colleagues report today, European Tour player Richie Ramsay has played on a Chinese course that was floodlit at night. Richie is confident that fresh, innovative thinking will be applied to the wider issue of the decline in golf crowds; he believes that inspiration could be drawn from Formula One's floodlit racing.
Many golf clubs are witnessing reduced or static membership because of the economic downturn. Might night-time golf be one way of bringing people back? Then again, as was shown by the length of time it took for women to be admitted as members at certain clubs, there is an inflexibility at certain levels of the game, which could result in night-time golf being a mere pipe-dream. Undaunted, we look forward to the time when the average golfer heads out of the door at 9pm, LED golf balls in hand, telling his - or her - other half: "Just heading out to the course, dear. Don't wait up."
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