All-Night Waiting Is Par for This Course : Recreation: A hearty bunch of golfers heeds a Torrey Pines tradition by queuing up in the wee hours of the morning for a chance to play the popular greens.

Sometimes, as he shivers inside his car in the darkness of an isolated coastal parking lot, half-startled by the lonesome wail of a not-so-distant coyote, Steve Mislinski realizes that he really is a fool for golf.

After all, he’s left his wife home alone so he can spend yet another night with fellow fanatics--guys like Artie, Moe, Logman and Rojo Grande--in a nervous marathon wait for the sun to finally show its face, their invitation to the links.

One by one, under the cover of darkness, the addicted ones converge on the famous Torrey Pines Golf Course, taking numbers as if it was some outdoor deli, killing time any way they can--telling shameless lies about the glories of past rounds, dozing in the back seats of subcompact cars or cooking an early breakfast over hibachis under the stars.

The craziest ones show up hours before midnight. Their goal is to be among the first to play what is possibly the most popular public golf course in America--long before the brightly dressed hordes flock upon its manicured greens--and still be home by noon.

They’re known as the Dawn Patrol. And each weekend morning for much of the past 30 years--while the rest of San Diego County sleeps--patrol members have endured the long night’s journey into golf. All for the love of a sport many say their families could never understand.

“My wife is home in a warm bed wondering why I’m here,” says the 22-year-old Mislinski. By midnight, he has already been hunkered down inside his Pontiac Sunbird for almost an hour. Still, he’s no better than No. 5 in line.

Overhead, the full moon hangs like a fluorescent Titleist, making its painfully slow arc over the stately Torrey pines and steel-gray Pacific, before being swallowed by a dawn-lit sky.

But dawn is still five pitch-black hours away. To pass the time, Mislinski explains how his wife can’t fathom his pursuit of the little white ball in the first place--let alone his waiting out in the darkness all night to do it.

“Her whole family thinks I’m absolutely crazy to be out here,” he says with a shrug. “And they may be right.”

But he’s got no choice. Mislinski plays regularly in a foursome with three other golfers. And so, once a month, it’s his turn to be The Lineman, to wait out the night in the front seat of his car.

Dawn Patrollers know the alternative to their nocturnal ramblings. To linger in bed often means sacrificing entire weekend days waiting to play either of the two 18-hole championship courses that constitute Torrey Pines.

The problem, locals say, is that the golf course has just become too popular for its own good. It’s one of the few municipal courses to host an annual Professional Golfers Assn. tour event--February’s Shearson-Lehman Brothers Open.

Snowbound duffers nationwide see the televised tournament and realize they too can test the famous seaside layout that offers spectacular views of La Jolla Cove and the Pacific shoreline. The course is also among a number of others countywide to offer reduced rates for senior citizens--$38 a month for up to 20 plays.

For San Diego city residents, the fees are a reasonable $15 on weekends--$22 for county residents and $40 for most others.

Golf’s popularity is also in full swing. For years, San Diego County has been golf poor--meaning there are more would-be players than the county’s 84 courses can comfortably handle, local officials say.

As a result, the public demand to play a championship-quality course such as Torrey Pines has skyrocketed. Last year, 190,000 rounds were played there--among the most of any course in the county. And officials expect that number to continue rising.

Each week, course starters are deluged by callers seeking reservations for the following weekend--tee-off times that start at 7:30 a.m. each morning and continue until the afternoon.

Sometimes 300 to 500 callers try to reach the golf course number at once--many using automatic-dial telephones. The deluge creates headaches for callers, starters and the telephone company, course officials say.

And despite a soon-to-be-installed telephone computer system that will handle seven callers simultaneously, getting through to the Torrey Pines starter is often like being the lucky caller on a radio sweepstakes.

The Dawn Patrol, offers course manager John Walter, is one way to beat the crunch. On a first-come, first-served basis, starters allow overnighters to tee off from dawn until 7:30 a.m., when the reserved tee times kick in.

“It’s open season,” he said. “Even if you don’t have a car phone with automatic dial for that reservation, just show up with the rest of the Dawn Patrol. This way, Joe Blow from Southeast San Diego and the company president both have an equal shot at playing first.”

Although there are often nightlong waits to play other courses throughout the county, Walter says, nothing compares to the protracted predawn scene at Torrey Pines.

Out there in the parking lot, where the Dawn Patrol congregates, there is no starter, no course official, to ensure that things run smoothly. Since the impromptu gatherings began in 1959, a time-tested honor system has evolved, regulars say.

This is how it works: The first golfer arrives sometime before midnight and waits for the next set of headlights to appear. He announces that he is No. 1 before heading off to sleep.

The No. 2 man then waits for the next arrival. And so it goes throughout the night as the numbers stretch into the 40s and 50s. The biggest surge comes about 2 a.m., after the bars close. Even after the course’s coffee shop opens at 4:30 a.m., the numbers game continues to rage.

“Whose got the last number?” a disheveled man calls to a crowd whose heads are held low over plates of eggs and steaming coffee cups. Then, just at dawn, the golfers line up at a nearby starter’s booth--each player recognizing those in front and behind him.

But the Dawn Patrol can be a risky gamble. This week’s time change will mean less daylight before 7:30 a.m. Some high-numbered golfers risk waiting all day to be fit in around reserved tee times, or flatly being told there is no space for them to play that day.

As a result, late-night drag races along Torrey Pines Road between golfers jockeying for the next spot in line are legendary, regulars say. Some will congregate at an adjacent golf course bar after work Friday, drink until closing and then stumble out onto the parking lot to take their place in line.

By far the busiest time at Torrey Pines, golfers say, is the day after the PGA tournament in February. That’s when golfers will start lining up at 4 p.m. Sunday for the next day’s play--some enduring a 14-hour wait to take a crack at the course under the same conditions as the professionals played it.

“The first time I ran into the Dawn Patrol I couldn’t believe my eyes,” said Walter, who has been course manager for about two years. “I get here in the dark at 4 a.m., right? There’s no lights at all, and I can’t see my hand in front of my face. But I hear these voices.

“You can’t see the bodies in the blackness. But you can bet each knew where the other one was the whole time. They’re real concerned about that.”

And God help the out-of-towner who doesn’t know the rules, the latecomer with the audacity to show up at some wimpish hour like 4 a.m. and try to barge to the head of the line.

That’s when mob law takes precedence over the Dawn Patrol. “Guys are real territorial of their place in line because they’ve waited all night to get it,” says Artie DeBaca, a 40-year-old landscaper who’s been doing the Dawn Patrol for 10 years now.

“They throw stiff shoulders into guys who try to budge. And there have been some fights. Basically, anyone who tries to move up in line has 50 tired, irritable guys to consult with first. It’s a real kangaroo court.”

Another Dawn Patrol rule says that, once golfers arrive, they must remain in the parking lot or lose their place--unless they’re gone for less than an hour to grab breakfast or a cup of coffee.

Once, DeBaca tested the rule when he brought his girlfriend along for the wait. But sometime around dawn, when he returned to the course after she forced him to take her back home, he found himself frozen out of the line.

“Nobody believed my story,” he said. “The only thing that saved me was that somebody had heard us fighting.”

Regulars are often accompanied by wives and girlfriends who don’t really believe their stories about sitting in a parking lot all night. Then there are curious wives like Abbie Kelly, who accompanied her husband, Michael, down from Long Beach for the weekend so he could play Torrey Pines.

“Golf is an absolutely ridiculous sport,” she said in the darkness. “This is crazy. But this is typical behavior for him. He says only the real fanatics do this. And I believe him.”

She sighed as she told how her husband had literally jumped on the hotel bed in his excitement to play Torrey Pines. “He’s on such a high when he plays this sport,” she said. “Golf is the other woman in our life. You accept it.”

Most Dawn Patrollers say their families have long ago certified them as crazy. Their ranks represent a cross-section of San Diego--doctors, construction workers, aerospace engineers, dentists, lawyers, police officers and even an occasional honeymooner--who have only each other’s company once they show up at the course.

Many smoke cigarettes and trade stories about their lives and work. Some pace in the black shadows, aimlessly swing golf clubs in the parking lot or take a few putts on the darkened practice green.

“By morning, you often feel like you grew up with these guys,” DeBaca says. “I get lots of landscaping business this way. People get to know your ways, and they want to work with you.”

Mike Rice, a San Diego deputy police chief, uses a flashlight to peruse golf magazines until he finally dozes off. Fellow insomniacs take strolls around the course or peer in at merchandise through the lighted windows of the nearby golf pro shop.

For years, John Nelson has garnered the pole position on the Dawn Patrol shift. He won’t say exactly when he arrives for fear others will beat him to the spot. “It’s classified,” he said.

Nelson, a retired aerospace engineer, claims to have started the Dawn Patrol back in 1959 as a way to beat the crowds even then.

“The name comes from an old World War I movie that showed Allied aircraft taking off at dawn to bomb the Germans,” he said. “The name stuck. And so have we. After so many years, the Dawn Patrol has become part of the place.”

There’s even Dawn Patrol stationery that players use to comment on course conditions or complain to city parks and recreation officials who two years ago considered discontinuing the practice.

For the Dawn Patrol, that meant war. “After a while,” the 65-year-old Nelson says, “the golf is second to the camaraderie. One thing we have in common is a love for the game.”

He remembers players like Bob the Whistler, who whistled as he played until he died two years ago. Nelson still won’t sit in the coffee shop seat Bob used to prefer.

Thirty years have taught Nelson that getting through the long nights is simply mind over matter. He keeps an eye out for the nocturnal scavengers--the skunks, coyotes and foxes that come prowling by.

One night, he counted 16 shooting stars as he watched through the moon roof of his car. And he keeps regular track of the full moon sliding across the sky like a long putt heading for the cup.

Sometimes, he chats with a suspicious policeman who won’t believe that he’s actually waiting there to play golf--until Nelson brandishes his golf clubs from the trunk.

Just before dawn, when the beeper on his watch alarm sings, when he hears the clicking of golf shoe spikes on the blacktop parking lot outside, Nelson knows that it’s time to carry on a tradition--being the first player on the golf course.

Being No. 1 has it’s drawbacks--like being swallowed by a soupy morning fog and having to search for lost balls in the pale early-morning light.

But, for Nelson, being first has its bragging rights. It means he can still attend church choir practice by 10:30 a.m., when some fellow Dawn Patrol members are still waiting to tee off.

The real joy, however, is playing his favorite sport at what for him is the most beautiful hour of the day--when he can use his footprints to trace playful patterns in the dewy grass or watch his putts throw up rooster tails of fresh morning wetness.

For the ranks of the Dawn Patrol, that sight alone is worth the wait.