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Your legs start to burn, letting you know that you’ve been in your crouch staring down your line for longer than your lower body strength sees fit. Eyes darting from the ball to the hole, roughly ten feet away, silently begging for an illuminated path to the ball to appear in a Tiger Woods PGA Tour fashion. Maybe a little right to left. Wait, maybe it’s left to right. Fuck it.
Creaking out of your crouch you ease your putter up to the ball, then pull it beside for one, two practice strokes. Head darting up and down, following the line from the cup to your ball to see if it’s on line. You feel good about the distance; good about the angle. Nice and smooth, free and easy. Find the bottom of the cup. You start your stroke.
The ball flies past the hole, leaving you an even more difficult putt with more break. You loudly swear, staring a likely double in the face. Then you check your watch.
It’s 4pm. You might’ve just tanked this hole, but you’re still making the turn with plenty of sunlight to finish your late afternoon round. It’s never fun to bomb a putt, but it sure feels good to do it on a Wednesday afternoon when you’d normally be working. Daylight savings arriving means it’s officially mid-week golf season.
For the record, I’m a huge fan of mid-week golf already. I’m in a unique position. I’ve got a flexible job, so it’s not as hard for me to escape the desk to dip out for the occasional 9 or 18. I’m also on daddy duty nearly every weekend, so that morning Saturday round usually isn’t in the cards. My personal preferences aside, daylight savings was literally made to get you out on the course M – F.
In the off-season it’s admittedly tough to shoulder a round of 18 on a normal Tuesday afternoon. Even for someone with a flexible job, and especially with someone plugging away at a 9 to 5, jumping ship after lunch is tough to manage. When the sun sets around 5-5:30pm, one needs to be teeing off by at least 1pm to really feel good about your chances of getting a full round in.
Hell, even a 1pm tee time puts you in the danger zone if your group gets stuck behind multiple retiree foursomes. You could wind up having to ride off the course with the taste of dissatisfaction after wrapping up the 15th. Knowing that you’ve got that extra daylight waiting for you allows you to creep out of the office in the later afternoon and still be able to have a fighting chance at a full 18; at the very least now you can sprint to the course after work for a quick 9.
If you’ve got a co-worker or buddy who can routinely roll out to the course in the late afternoon with you, that’s even better. But, if you’re the only one smart enough to take advantage of increased prime course hours, don’t sweat it. Hop on with a group of retirees who would love nothing more than to spew some wisdom about the good old days and buy a young dude some beers. Or just power through that solo round; either way you’re getting more golf in and that’s what’s really important here.
Now, I’m not here to argue for or against daylight savings itself as an institution. That’s already been done time and time again. Daylight savings staying or going isn’t going to be the hill I die on either way. Regardless of how you feel about it, much like Winter in Westeros, daylight savings is coming. So you might as well take advantage.
Don’t complain about the lost hour of sleep on Sunday, or the being out of sorts for a few days. Instead, appreciate that you might have a chance to put in a good workday at both the office and the course. Don’t look at daylight savings as an inconvenience; look at it as a possibly antiquated tradition helping you work on your game. .
Image via Unsplash
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Kyle Bandujo
The artist formerly known as Crash Davis. My kid doesn't think I'm funny.
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Best take on here in a long time. The midweek game also lends itself to catching the course not being elbow to asshole. I still have my Sunday game but, I met most of the faces that rotate in that Sunday game on a random Thursday afternoon.
Mid week late afternoon is the best. Courses that are $90+ on weekends are $20-30. Plus you get a cool sunset the last few holes.
Used a sick day on my birthday to do this last week. Best choice I’ve made in a while
Absolutely. Every once in a while, I’ll take a random Tuesday or Wednesday off and play 18 in the morning, lunch and beers, then 18 again in the afternoon. A lot of courses offer cheap same-day replay rates M-Th.
Few things better than getting 9 or 18…or 27 in after work.
Great take.
Best time of the year
Also a great excuse to polish a few off on the course
It’s content like this that makes Bandjo the potential PGP GOAT
Bandujo* blaming DST for that
That extra afternoon sunlight makes me equally excited for Thursday golf AND post-work fishing.
I HATE it when I have to leave the course after 15 bc it got too dark out. Terrible feeling.
I just went from six to midnight baby