MATCH PLAY : Golfers Decide to Play Out a Midwinter Night’s Dream

Several members of the Valencia Country Club skidded their way through a few holes of golf last week during the freak snowstorm that dumped several inches on the course. In any of the last 25 years, playing golf in the snow at Valencia would certainly have been the weird occurrence of the winter.

But not this winter.

Not since Curtis (Corky) Knight and Dick Copra reacted to an early-evening hole-in-one by thrashing their way through six holes in total darkness in a frantic effort to make the ace legitimate under United States Golf Assn. rules, which require that nine consecutive holes be played to make a hole-in-one official.

What they didn’t know is that the rules say nothing about playing the nine holes on the same day and that they could have finished their quest the next morning, when their adventure might have been easier by the addition of a few little things, such as vision and a clue as to where they were.

After having played the back nine, Knight and Copra, both of Newhall, decided to squeeze in three more holes before dark, No. 1, No. 2 and, to get back to the clubhouse, No. 7.

Then Knight, 42, got the hole-in-one on No. 7, a 190-yard, par-3. He cranked a three-iron at the flag as darkness began to swallow up the course. Neither Knight nor Copra saw the ball hit the green, but when they arrived at the flag they found Knight’s ball in the cup.

“We got to the green and didn’t see his ball, so we assumed it was in the bunker behind the green,” Copra said. “Corky was walking by the hole on his way to the bunker and he let out this big yell. I was about 10-feet away and about came out of my shoes. I walked over and pulled the ball out for him. We were howling.

“We figured we had about 15 minutes of any light at all left, but Corky said we had to finish nine holes or it wouldn’t count. So we took off, running.”

Playing in the fast-fading light and sprinting from golf cart to his ball and back again, Knight birdied the next hole. By now, it was dark. Real dark.

“We couldn’t see our golf shoes,” Copra said.

By the next hole, the men couldn’t see their teed-up golf balls. But Knight--who had carded a hole-in-one at the age of 13 and another at 16--insisted they play on or this ace would not be recognized.

They temporarily solved the problem by laying down lighted matches and burning cigarettes beside their golf balls, swinging at the orange glow that was reflecting off the ball. But as it got darker still, they were torching entire books of matches at once, laying them down beside the golf balls and flailing away.

They found their golf balls on the fairway by first determining where the shots should have landed and then searching the area by the glow of cigarettes.

Luckily for Copra, the round ended shortly after 6:30. And luckily for Knight, because of the hour there were only two people at the bar to benefit from the tradition that calls for an ace shooter to buy a round of drinks for the bar.

Knight got his hole in one, and the celebration cost him only $10. And his total score for the 18 holes of what turned out to be frenzied golf was a 71.

All in all, not a bad Knight.

Except, of course, that it wasn’t necessary. Under USGA rules, Knight could have completed the rest of the required holes the next morning, thus saving himself lots of nervousness. And many matches.

“I just wasn’t sure of the rules, and I wasn’t going to let the hole-in-one get away from me,” Knight said.

Well, there was one other thing that Knight was thinking about that night on the golf course. He was thinking how silly it was for a man with a medical condition known as night blindness to be out there.

“Legally, I am blind at night,” he said.

“But it didn’t seem to matter that night. I was just playing so perfectly. I was in a zone.”

A zone, perhaps, that only Rod Serling could have appreciated.