Damn you people! Go back to your shanties!

I used to think that golf was for tools. To me, golf conjured up one of two mental pictures, the first of which was a Ken-doll-like dude who stepped straight from the pages of the J. Crew catalog, complete with bag of overpriced clubs and latent homosexuality. The second was of a leathery old retiree out there pissing away his grandkids' inheritance in a futile effort to shoot his age. Furthermore, golf is not a sport. I generally like doing stuff that makes me less out of shape than I already am, and anything I can do while drinking in public at two in the afternoon isn't going to help me out with that endeavor.

I'd like to say that my experiences last week changed everything.

Last Saturday morning I was awakened at 10 A.M. by a phone call from my friend "Ape," who told me that I should come play golf with him and my dad. I laughed and went back to sleep. Then, because I forgot to lock the front door the night before, I was shaken awake and TOLD that I would be playing golf. I'm not sure what happened in the next ten minutes, but I remember being dressed only partially under my own power and hustled into a truck, complaining all the way.

We arrived at the local public course at 10:15. Right as we pulled into the parking lot we were cut off by an Oldsmobile being driven by a George Burns lookalike. This didn't help break down any of my stereotypes. I wanted out. I had snuck onto courses before and chipped around, but like a Catholic schoolgirl preserving her virginity, I was determined to keep my golf cherry until it was absolutely impossible to claim non-golfer status. I could have been spending that morning almost anywhere else, and golfing was not high on my list of pleasant "wake-up" activities.

Now, I have to make one thing clear: summer in Orange County is, in a word, heaven. The sun shines out of a cloudless blue sky. The temperature hovers in the low 80s every day. The streets and beaches swarm with the sort of bikini-clad teenage girls that would drive most men to the sex offender registry.

A public golf course is home to none of these things. The sun becomes a glowering inferno that makes you sweat like Patrick Ewing and beg for the sweet release of death. The normally cool ocean breeze is stifled by the flood-control channel - sorry, "valley" - the course is inevitably built into, so when you do catch a gust it feels more like a Great Dane breathing heavily into your face. And the 10-to-1 male-female ratio is exacerbated by the fact that every woman you see is double your age and chain-smoking Virginia Slims through a hole in her larynx.

Needless to say, the day was not shaping up to be a good one. Once it became clear that there was no fighting the contents of my afternoon, I resigned myself to my fate, and our names were called over the loudspeaker. Another reason not to like golf: you are constantly confronted by the fact that you are involved in a "threesome" with two other men, one of whom you are related to.

There was an elderly gentleman getting ready to hit his tee shot when we arrived at the first box. He shanked a drive about fifty feet down the left side of the fairway, and I managed to stifle a laugh. My dad, waiting for the consequences, just smiled.

I had been chosen to go first. Having played high-level baseball for years, I figured my skills would convert to golf easily. I strutted up to the tee box like the bad motherfucker that I am and prepared to drive the shit out of that ball. It couldn't be that hard, right? The ball is sitting right there, for God's sake; it's not a Billy Wagner slider. True to form, I launched my first-ever tee shot. I must have hit it 300 yards. The only problem with this was that those 300 yards were patterned roughly in the shape of the letter "C," as in "criminally liable for damages." I literally could not believe how far the ball sliced. By the time it landed three fairways over other golfers were starting to look around suspiciously, so I sheepishly downgraded to a three-iron and rocketed a ground ball down the center of the fairway, and we were off.

By the fifth hole all three of us were hot and frustrated. I had abandoned any delusions of hitting a ball straight down the fairway and, to compensate, had rotated my stance 45 degrees counterclockwise, with surprisingly good results. After I miraculously holed a 20-foot putt for par on the most difficult hole on the course, I started getting a little cocky. Then my friend put together an offer: Skins game rules, loser buys drinks for the night.

I put together a collective score of about 16 on the next two holes. On the seventh hole I think I hit TWO tee shots into private residences. But the beauty of Skins scoring is that only the number of holes you win - not your overall score - matters. (Of course, I could be wrong on this, since my only experience with golf scoring to this point occurs when I turn on ESPN at 1 PM on a Saturday expecting to see baseball, find a golf tournament, and then leave it on while I make breakfast.)

Then, around hole 10, I started playing out of my mind. I drove the green on 12, and on 13 I made a ridiculous approach shot that rolled within inches of the cup. This was, of course, after I hit a majestic drive that I probably could have thrown farther from the tee box, had I tried. We arrived at the 18th green with me in the lead by one hole, needing only a tie to secure about $40 worth of free booze.

Then I collapsed, three-putting from above the hole to below it to back above it again. Finally I holed out with a 6, leaving Ape with a difficult uphill 10-footer to win. He left it short, and I responded by throwing my putter thirty feet in the air and screaming "WOOO!" before realizing that other people were staring. I am a classy gentleman.

Golf, I've been told, is an important networking skill. As a future member of the corporate world, It's something I would have been forced to learn eventually. On top of that, I'm a white, middle-class American male, so it's practically my destiny. Next thing you know, I'll be growing a mustache and rocking out to Bad Company with the top down in my Sebring Coupe. But I'd better keep working at it, because if I plan on using it to my advantage, I need to get at least good enough to make sure I let my future boss win by exactly one stroke.

So look for me practicing out there tomorrow. I'll be the guy in the sandals and unwashed basketball shorts. Unless you're the owner of a black Chevy Blazer with a cracked passenger window. In that case, I'm a 65-year-old man by the name of "Leon."