Dawn Patrol

You may have noticed I play a lot of early morning rounds. For us avid golfers, it’s called “Dawn Patrol.”

There’s nothing quite like putting your shoes on in the parking lot while it’s still dark out. The sun is slowly starting to peek out over the horizon as you tee up your first ball. Sometimes you can’t even see exactly where the fairway is in front of you, whether it’s the morning fog rolling through the trees or the blinding glow of the morning sun pushing through the haze and directly into your eyes.

Whatever it is about Dawn Patrol golf, I love it. I also happen to love evening golf. Those are my two favorite times to play. The only problem with evening golf is the threat that you won’t finish your round before it’s too dark to play. You don’t have that fear first thing in the morning, which is why I prefer it most. It’s nothing but bliss as you watch the golf course slowly come to life right in front of you. That is, until you shank a few shots and are quickly shaken back to reality.

Anyway, it’s clear I like to take a lot of pictures out on the course. I have thousands I’ve captured over the years, but some of my absolute favorite images are those that depict the various feelings and colors of Dawn Patrol on all different types of courses. I recently took one of my all-time favorite course photos at Cog Hill outside of Chicago and it has since inspired me to comb through all my pictures to find the best early morning shots. 

I’ve gathered them into a Flickr slideshow that you can view here:

“Dawn Patrol” by the Golf Nomad

These pictures prove what I love so much about the modern age of digital photography. When I’m out on a course, I will snap a lot of pictures. I’ll take them in heavy fog. I’ll point the camera directly at the sun. It doesn’t matter. Most of them don’t turn out well (especially during the early morning), but on occasion I’ll capture something truly special. That’s what these photos are.

It is also worth noting that none of these images have been touched in Photoshop. They are purely “point, click, shoot and hope.” I put them into this slideshow instead of a blog post so you can see the images in a higher quality and bigger on the screen than you can here. 

I hope you enjoy it.