Midnight Classic - Yellowknife Golf Club

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Every year, on summer solstice, the Yellowknife Golf Club hosts the 'Midnight Classic' which is basically two days full of different tournaments sandwiched around a 9 hole tournament that tees off at midnight on the dot. My dad lives in Rankin Inlet and was going to be in Yellowknife this weekend anyway, so we decided meet up and have a golf 'adventure'.

Yellowknife Golf Club is a full 18 hole course with sand fairways, and artificial turf greens. The course has a real layout, with defined fairways (trees and muskeg let you know when you miss it), some doglegs, and even the greens have a few different pin positions so that the members don't get bored. It plays about 6200 yards from the men's tees. You have the choice of playing your ball off the sand (not really recommended because it's not firm sand, more like playing on a beach), teeing it up, or hitting off a mat that you carry around with you. All options are kind of tricky because it's hard to find any stability when swinging in soft sand, and the mats put the ball a good three inches above your feet, especially if you dig your feet down trying to find something firm for your stance. The good thing is you get immediate feedback if your swing is not in balance. There are a couple of water hazards on the course, as well as a few bunkers. Bunkers on a sand course I found really kind of funny, but then I found them really kind of OFTEN, and they didn't seem that great then. Aside from the bunkers and the water, the real hazard at YGC is the mosquitoes. I have never seen so many in my life as I saw last night, just swarms of them. The Watkins bug dope worked great, and I never got bit, but they still would swarm you, trying to fly up your nose, in your eyes, blech. Definitely made it hard to concentrate on the swing.

The midnight tournament is quite popular and was completely sold out. We had a shotgun start at midnight, with two groups of four on every hole, 144 people out on the course. And the cool part of a shotgun start here in the north is that it was an actual shotgun start. Right at the crack of midnight came the crack of the rifle, which is a bit different than the shotgun starts I've played in in Ottawa. It was drizzling most of the evening leading up to the start, but started to clear in the north just before midnight. The clubhouse was framed by a rainbow as we walked out to our start hole, which I thought was a good sign. It wasn't. There was no pot of gold to be found in our scores, but it was good fun anyway. It was pretty hard to follow your ball in the overcast conditions, but with the soft sand the balls didn't run away. As long as you didn't hit it into the muskeg, you'd find it. The sun went down around 1:30am or so, and came back up just before three. When the sun was down, it was like playing just after sunset in Ottawa. Still pretty light, but like I said, tough to follow the ball. It was pretty slow going because of the number of people on the course and we finished our ninth hole right at 4am, so 4 hours for 9 holes. Felt like I was playing at Pineview on a Saturday! But we really didn't seem to notice the wait too much, and we were paired with a really nice couple, so it didn't seem too long out there.

All in all I wouldn't say it was my most enjoyable round ever, but it was by far the most memorable. I think a lot of the fun up here is not necessarily the things you do, but more the act of doing them if that makes any sense. A good time and a great adventure. I'll post some pictures below.

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You can kind of see a rainbow coming out of the clubhouse in the first picture, just as we were leaving the parking lot. Then a couple pictures of the second hole at sunrise, my golf bag on the first hole, and one of my dad after popping one up.

starting off with a rainbow.JPG 2nd hole tee box.JPG 2nd hole.JPG my golf bag on the first hole.JPG dad after popping one up.JPG

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The next pictures are of me putting on the 9th I think, with my trusty Mil Spec, my ball sitting in a bunker on the 2nd hole and the sunrise through the trees.

me putting.JPG I hit into a bunker on a sand course.JPG sunrise.JPG sunrise through the trees.JPG

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The golf course is next to the airport, which seems to get used 24 hours a day. The cool thing is the approach to the airport from the north comes straight over the course.

plane coming in for landing out of the north.JPG plane a bit closer.JPG plane closer still.JPG plane!.JPG