We rise with the sun.

We put on headgear to protect our faces and scalps from the blistering sun. We wear shoes with spikes on the bottom to gain traction and stable footing on the unforgiving terrain. We protect our hands with gloves made from the skin of wild animals (cows, usually). We haul our implements of destruction, which we call “clubs” in bags we call … well, “bags”. We mount electric-powered chariots that speed over the earth at approximately 7 1/2 miles per hour in search of our prey. When we find our prey – a tiny white ball (which is NOT a euphemism for anything) – we will attempt to strike it with one of our clubs and will probably propel it in a direction that was never even thought possible by those who may be watching, especially if they are physicists or engineers. Sometimes it will sink straight into the ground. Sometimes it will fly 180 degrees opposite the direction of the swing. If there is a tree or a spectator in the vicinity, the ball will always strike it, despite the fact that trees cannot run and spectators can.

We are golfers and we are silly people who play the strangest sport known to man, including curling and that thing where horses run through an obstacle course most likely designed by someone who hates horses. Horses weigh over 1000 pounds and are not supposed to jump over things, despite what you may have seen in cowboy movies. You might as well send an elephant through that course. At least that would be fun to watch. The failures would be spectacular. How strange is golf, you ask? For one thing, golf is the only sport that I know of where you are supposed to change equipment depending on the situation you are in. Can you imagine a tennis player changing racquets in mid-point? Even curlers use only one kind of broom. Not golfers. Golfers carry 13 different clubs in their bags. That’s the limit. We’d carry more if we could. Then golfers confer with the other golfers over which club to use. Some people actually hire a guy, called a Caddy, to follow them around carrying their clubs and making suggestions of which one to use.

Club choice is not the only decision facing the modern golfer, though. We can also choose from a wide variety of golf balls. Some are designed to go higher. Some fly further. Some have more spin, some less. There’s NO STANDARD BALL. Can you imagine a football player asking to use a football with more “spiral” to it? How about a baseball player requesting to use a “sacrifice fly” ball in a key situation?

So here I am – Mr. Golfer. I’ve got special shoes, special gloves and I can use whichever ball I want to and choose from 13 different (or the same, frankly) golf clubs to hit it with and you know what?

I still stink.

Really. I cause injuries to myself and others. One of my golfing friends missed two days of work due to a pulled muscle in his abdomen as a result of the hysterical laughing fit I sent him into after I hit a ball with a swing so perfect that it caused the ball to come to rest 3 feet behind me. No, I wasn’t swinging backwards. I hit cars. I hit houses. Do you know what a fairway is? There are three parts to a golf hole. There is the tee box, which is where you take your first whack at the ball. Then there is the green, which is where the target cup is located. Pretty much everything between the tee box and the green is called the fairway. Many of the fairways I’ve seen are approximately the size of Rhode Island. I rarely hit the fairways I aim for, although several times I’ve hit the fairways of other holes. The thing is, even though I stink at golf, I’m usually not the worst golfer on the course.

So why, you may ask, would a bunch of otherwise dignified and sane guys let themselves look so goofy riding around in a miniature car and whacking little balls with sticks?

Turns out, it’s not about golf or sport or competition. It’s about cigars and beer. And for those things, many guys will willingly look and act like escaped mental patients.

For those of you who have never been to a golf tournament, but wondered why there are so many, now you know. Golf tournaments are rife with cigars and beer. The actual golfing is secondary. Or thirdary, if that’s a word. See, you have to claim to play golf in order to get a golf cart to drive around in to smoke the cigars and find the beer. It’s all about hanging out with a bunch of other people smoking, drinking and driving around in miniature, battery-powered vehicles. I’m pretty sure that if you held a golf tournament and forbade anyone to actually play golf, everyone would still come. They’d be confused at first, but they would still come, and they’d love it. As long as you supplied cigars and beer and tiny, electric cars, they would sign up, pay their entry fees and love every minute of that tournament. They may even go home afterward and tell their families that they played the best golf of their lives.

And they would be telling the truth.