I LOVE it! It's great! I don't play it, mind you (except a couple of times years back). But it's wonderful.

You see, I live a few yards down from the second tee -- the second fairway is an extension of my back yard. This means I unobstructed views of some lovely mountains, a place to cross-country ski in the winter, and entertainment all year 'round.

We can sit on the deck or the patio, sipping cool drinks, our feet up, and watch men and women (and some children, but they're a different story) play pasture pool. Laughed myself silly last weekend at a guy who took at least six swipes at a ball and missed it every time -- he finally picked it up and took off in his golf cart.

Now, the kids are different. They're out with their folks and have not yet lost the truth: it's a game and you should have fun with it. So they do, and they're a joy to watch.

Lots of neighbors walk their dogs on the golf course in the evening after it closes. "Play the ball where it lies" applies here, too, I suppose....

And it's a source of gifts. So far, I've collected five free golf balls from my back yard. NEW golfballs. EXPENSIVE golfballs, or so I'm told. Since I don't play I gave them away as a birthday present to someone who does. Saved me ten bucks, easy.

No one will let me do MY golf thing, though. Even my wife won't let me shoot golf. I figured that living "on" a golf course, I could shoot golf, but no. You can't even get those uncooperative golfers to whack the ball when you yell "PULL!" Of course, if you shoot it you have to eat it, and them golfs have a really hard skin, there's hard TO skin, they're all stringy inside, and if you ever do get them cooked tender they taste like rubber.

Yeah, golf's generally okay.