There's little better than 36 holes of golf

One of my favorite golf holes ever is the Par 3 seventh hole at Empire Lakes Golf Course in Rancho Cucamonga.

Depending on where the flag is placed and which tee box is used, it's a 160-170-yard hole. If you play it right -- if you attack it -- all but the last 10 or 15 yards is over water.

It's possible to play it safe, to hit up to the left of the lake and not risk a splash, but you won't be on the green. And if your first shot isn't on the green on a Par 3, it's much more difficult to par the hole and nearly impossible to birdie it.

I don't play often enough to be good, and I sort of created my own swing without benefit of lessons. When I play well, I can break 90 once in a while, which was actually my goal when I started playing golf.

Why? I guess because I read in a golf book that only about 10 percent of recreational golfers ever break 90. On my very best days, I've shot 83 and 84. That's very satisfying, since I remember the first time I played nine holes about 17 years ago, I shot a 75.

Golf can be the most damnably frustrating game. Within five minutes, I can top a shot and have it go five yards and follow a couple of shots later by blasting a pitching wedge 100 yards to within six feet of the pin.

I can hit a horrible drive and on the same hole sink a 25-foot putt.

Heaven ... and hell.

Mostly for me, golf is a way to step back from all the things in my life that frustrate me. It's a way to spend eight or nine hours -- we play 36 holes -- in the sunlight and come home with more tan than is really healthy for me.

It's a way to spend a day sharing a cart with my buddy Mick, who remains my closest friend in the world in the 45th summer of our friendship. It's the 2009 equivalent of when we sat on a curb when we were kids and discussed the things we had done and the things we wanted to do.

More often that not these days, the conversation is about our various physical woes. We used to play baseball, football and basketball together, but we're both on the far side of 55 now and pretty much limited to golf.

We discuss our families. He was a father before I was, but I beat him to grandfatherhood, if that's a word.

We played today. On the course at 6:30 a.m. and off at 3 p.m. So-so golf with some highlights to keep us coming back. I blasted my tee shot successfully over the water on the seventh hole both times, but missed my putts and didn't par the hole either time.

Heaven ... and hell.

But mostly heaven.