Leave it to my friend Butch, a 2-handicapper who looks at the hole while he putts but is otherwise not annoying at all, to make sense out of it all. "It really comes down to expectations," he says. "Everyone wants the trip to be exactly as they imagined it, as they remember last year''s trip. Of course, that memory is warped--so they''ve got no chance. They set themselves up."Butch''s words reminded me of that old Greek saying, "You can''t step into the same river twice." Add something about allowing generous drops from the bank and that pretty much sums it up.

I can''t hate them with all my heart. Between my second birthday and my 16th, my main ambition was to drive a car, and the first thing I ever got to drive was a golf cart. I was 6 or 7. My father had won permission to spend the afternoon at the country club by offering to take me along. He kept me tractable by occasionally permitting me to place a trembling hand on the steering wheel. car When I got bored and demanded to be taken home, he suggested, in desperation, that we switch seats.Thirty years later, I struck a similar bargain with my daughter, who was also 6 or 7. "I love golf!" she told my wife when we got home, and she asked if we could play again the next day. That evening, I confessed that, contrary to what I''d allowed her to believe on the course, "playing golf " did not consist of recklessly steering an electric cart around a field while Daddy nervously hopped in and out. I added that she would be welcome to join me in the morning, but this time we would be walking. And that was the end of that.

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