The lure of twilight golf is the big savings, sometimes as much as $100 per player in resort-mad Palm Desert. But you’re racing the sun as it’s going, going . . .

It’s 2:30 in the afternoon in early March. There are about three hours of God’s sunlight and another 30 minutes of the devil’s dusk to play a golf course that usually takes a leisurely four and a half. As we squint into the lowering sun on the first tee, the guys on the back of the back nine, the ones with the deep pockets, are well on their way to finishing their rounds. We are not like them. We are in a race with nature’s clock for one reason: to save a buck.

Make that a hundred bucks. Per person. That’s the difference between the regular $165 fee here at the Mountain View course at Desert Willow Golf Resort in Palm Desert and the $65 “sunset” fee that started at 2. Same gorgeous landscaping--flowering bushes that look like a plein-air painting perfectly positioned along emerald fairways. Same GPS system in the cushy carts. Same sumptuous clubhouse waiting at the end. The management is betting we won’t finish. We’re betting we will.

You can play twilight golf almost anywhere. But Palm Desert and its Coachella Valley neighbors, heavily stocked with resort-style courses, are perfect for it. We’re talking spring and fall afternoons when you don’t have to put on a jacket until the sun has dropped behind the hills they call a mountain range. For Angelenos who have shivered and swatted their way through mosquito-plagued twilight rounds on their tattered home courses, it’s paradise.

But whether we will get our money’s worth rests on the unknowable skills of the people in front of us. Any combination of golfers hacking their way along can slow down play. It’s like getting on the freeway: that mishap hours before is having a domino effect and now you and the other fuming drivers are crawling along. Nor can we mess around. Efficient play means more holes. Figure out the hazards fast. Don’t even second-guess how those greens will break. We don’t have all day.

Chances are, and here’s the other cool thing about twilight golf farther from the madding crowds, you’re out in small numbers on these courses. But that one guy behind you will be lurking, maybe hoping you’ll let him play through, or that at some point you’ll join forces, the better to summit 18 by dark.

My partner and I are having a heavenly round at Desert Willow--which is incredibly opulent for a municipal course--especially after merging with the golfer behind us. It’s one thing to rush because you want to; it’s another to feel the pressure of an impatient player. Our new friend is no stranger to twilight. He’s got the fluorescent balls we wish we had bought when, at about the 16th, we start to see the sun in ever-smaller geometric fragments as it drops behind Mt. San Jacinto. But we complete 18. Hooyah.

The next day we play another municipal course, Desert Dunes Golf Club in Desert Hot Springs, touted because it was designed by the famed Robert Trent Jones Jr. and because it has greens of bent grass, a less common variety that can make for a softer, slower green. It costs $69 normally, so the 2 p.m. twilight rate of $39 is a small savings. But we’re staying in Desert Hot Springs, another bargain, so we decide to try the course. Besides, there’s the Trent Jones-bent grass mystique.

Something is bent here. The view from the first tee resembles the Mad Hatter’s tea party. There are so many dips and swales in the fairways that it looks as if Jones has strewn the course with giant cups and saucers. Plus the wind is crying some Jimi Hendrix dirge with a force I haven’t felt since Scotland. The guy in the pro shop said it would die down any time now. Right, and I have a bridge for sale in the desert.

The greens are fabulous. Which is helpful because with the wind and the deep rough, it’s not easy getting to them. And I would like to have a conversation with Jones junior about his fascination with undulating surfaces. There’s also, we’re about to find out, a wreck ahead of us in the guise of a foursome with a couple of struggling female players who look as if they also would like to have a word with Mr. Jones.

Play is getting really slow by the 14th so we try to jump ahead to an open hole, a little twilight golf trick, but we run into the wreck and it’s time to get off the freeway.

Still on the prowl for dramatic savings, I pass on playing at two places I lust for: PGA West and La Quinta Resort & Club. They regularly show up on golf’s “best” courses lists, but neither knows the meaning of bargain, with fees dropping from $170 to $110 at twilight. Heritage Palms comes highly recommended, but because of its shotgun format most weekdays, in which foursomes start play at different holes, it has only one twilight rate those days--at 12:30, when the fee goes from $95 to $65.

Marriott Desert Springs, across the street from Desert Willow, is more like it. The $140 rate goes to $75 at 2, the normal twilight starting time in early spring before the time change. There also is a super-twilight rate of $30 at 4. I am strongly tempted by that, but then remember how early we lost the sun behind the mountains. We’d be lucky to get in nine holes.

As it turns out, we get in only 16 on the Palm course, one of two at the Marriott resort, even using the fluorescent yellow balls I’d finally bought (one drawback was that they had a dead feel, like range balls). But the fairways are super-friendly, and there is plenty of soothing water and water life, including flamingos. Good thing we weren’t at the Mad Hatter’s tea party--we might have been tempted to play croquet.

Who needs croquet when there are courses such as the Landmark Golf Club in Indio, with a rate that drops from $135 to $45 at 2:30. We play the North Course, which we have been warned is PGA tough, but there’s something inspiring about the landscape, which doesn’t try to hide the desert.

The desert certainly loves it. There’s a great range of native bird life (no flamingos in sight), and because we’re farther from the mountains that hover over Palm Springs, the light lingers and lingers. I can’t believe I am reaching most of the greens in regulation, although I can’t figure out the speed of the greens themselves, which keeps me in bogey land. I don’t mind. The pace of play is perfect. The crescent moon is shivering but we’re not when we reach the 18th, with light to spare.

I marvel at how few people are out for the twilight bonanza. That’s partly explained by the small discounts offered when people book morning times through the course’s Web site, says Charles DeLorey, Landmark’s tournament director. There are also Internet services such as teetimecalifornia.com, which offer heavily discounted rates throughout the day depending on availability. The catch? Availability. I’ll just count on getting that big twilight savings each time.

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Twilight Tips

There’s not a lot you can do to light up your life if you’re committed to twilight golf. No special tracking devices that will take you to your ball. No headlights on the golf cart. There is a glowing ball; it’s a translucent version with a hollow core into which is inserted a glow stick. But that little gimmick makes the ball feel and act like, well, a ball with a hole drilled in it. Almost none of the major manufacturers offer the fluorescent yellow and orange balls that are easier to see, a drag if you’re hooked, like many golfers are, on a particular brand. The number of golfers requesting the colored balls is apparently quite small, which tells you something about the cult of twilight golf. I find Pinnacle balls in yellow but they feel like a rock--they can go far and straight but have no spin. What’s a twilight golfer to do? Always hit it straight.