Who You Gonna Call? Ghostbusters!
Just like the major retailers who now display their Halloween merchandise in early September, I am going to give you some golfing/ghost stories a month in advance to start your fall season. After all, this is the last issue of Beach Paper until May 2015.
My favorite golf/ghost story is actually the movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance, but listed below are a few unbelievable ghostly happenings that might either give you a laugh or frighten you on a cold, dark and spooky night.
To recap the movie, Will Smith plays Bagger Vance, a ghost-like figure who appears out of the night as Rannulph Junnah (Matt Damon) tries to find his swing hitting golf balls by the light of a lantern.
Bagger is a cross between the old TV show “Touched by an Angel” and Doctor Phil, as he guides Captain Junnah to the unbelievable finish in a three-way golf match involving him, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagan.
Ghost Story #1: Strange sightings have been reported on the Galloping Hill Golf Course located in Kenilworth, New Jersey, especially at night. Several people claim they have seen a headless horseman ride across the course in full battle gear, brandishing his sword. It is believed that this ghost might be a Hessian soldier who fought and died during a battle of the Revolutionary War. Ghost hunter Dennis Hauk believes he may be the inspiration for the headless horseman in Washington Irving’s tale, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”
Ghost Story #2: If you ever play a round at The Victoria Golf Course in British Columbia, make sure you are done and out of the parking lot before dark. It is believed that the ghost of Doris Gravlin, who was killed by her husband on the golf course (and then buried in the sand trap near the 7th green … and you think you have trouble getting out of a trap!), haunts the course and parking lot.
Her spirit is often seen as a floating figure dressed in white, gracefully moving around the course late at night. For those golfers who don’t vacate the parking lot until dark, she often passes right through their windshields. (There is no mention of any tie-in between a high bar bill and the numerous sightings.)
Ghost Story #3: Meet the White Witch of Rose Hall, a ghost located on the course at The Ritz-Carlton White Witch Golf Course in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Annie Palmer practiced voodoo on the 6,000 acre estate in the early 1800s and was killed by her slaves during a rebellion in 1830. She was found murdered in her bed, and to this day haunts the bedroom, stairway and grounds of the Great House, known as Rose Hall. (If you stay in that room on a golf getaway, don’t forget to ask for the AAA discount.)
Ghost Story #4: Going back to Canada and the Fort MacLeod Golf Club located in Alberta, we meet two ghosts that keep hanging around the course. No one cared that the course was built on the site of a Royal Mounted Police fort until late one night when the ghosts appeared for the first time. In the early 1900s, two smugglers were tried, convicted and hanged on the site of the current second tee box on the course. To make matters worse, they were buried somewhere under the first fairway (talk about a bad lie). On overcast days and dark moonless nights, they can be seen hanging around the trees and floating over the fairway.
Ghost Story #5: This story is of love scorned and a would-be suitor who kidnaps his intended wife, kills her and walls her up inside his large estate manor house. The house now sits on the Upminster Golf Club in Essex, England, and the room in question is the clubhouse bar. The members of the course claim to have seen a figure dressed in white roaming around the clubhouse. They have given her the name Mary and believe (often after a few rounds in the bar) that her bones are behind one of the walls. I have not been able to confirm or deny that this was the origin of the bloody mary cocktail!
19th Hole Trivia:
In 2000, The Legend of Bagger Vance cost $60 million to produce and grossed only $30.6 million at the box office.
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