I Took a Mistress This Holiday Weekend -- Her Name Is Golf

Golf is an acquired taste, hobby, passion, obsession, devotion. I acquired it early in life, when my Uncle Mike sawed down an adult set of irons for me and wrapped genuine leather grips on them before my 8th birthday. Gifts of passion are always the best kind. My high school boasted a 9-hole course that wrapped around campus in charming and dramatic slopes and hills. I played 1,000 holes on it if I played one. Once I shot a 74 at the University of Maryland's course, but most often I played an erratic game off of the tee box and rarely broke 80. I never took lessons; rather, I simply applied the same motion with my arms and hips in my summer movements as I did in my shooting ones in hockey skates each winter. The two sports are like fraternal twins of body motion. I once followed Washington Capitals' defenseman Darren Veitch, playing as an amateur, in the Maryland Open. He shot a 65 that day and was more talented than many of the PGA touring pros I'd seen for years at the...