If you are reading this, we have a lot in common. I suspect that like me, you are a boomer, reasonably intellectual, middle to upper middle class, and a golfer. You are probably pretty good at our sport, probably have an index of between 8 and 16, and above all, you are a realist about your ability and your potential for becoming the golfer you always wanted to be.

I suspect you went through a period of time when you thought that if you bought the right equipment, you would become a great ball striker and a significantly better golfer. You went through several drivers, putters, wedges, and fairway woods. When utility clubs became the rage, you bought a couple. You were happy to exchange your persimmons for metal “woods” (although like me, you never really figured out what to call them).

Then there are the irons we have both invested in. We lined up for perimeter balanced, cast, oversized, graphite shafted “stuff.” We tried this set because they were longer. We bought that set because they were more accurate. We tried this set because they were a graduated set, going from hybrid long irons to cavity-back mid irons to forged-blade short irons. We even decided that iron sets were passé. What we really should do, we told ourselves, were to buy our clubs like they did in the old days – one club at a time with each addition to our bag specially designed for the job they were bought to do.

Strangely, looking back, we came to realize that in spite of all our work, all our thought, all of the money we spent – we were not fundamentally better golfers than we had ever been. If we were better, it was probably because we came to know our limitations and our strengths. We didn’t put ourselves in positions that would turn a one-shot penalty into a three shot penalty. We worked on our swing. We learned to relax. We read books on sports psychology. We watched and thought about the lessons we took away from “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” ‘The Greatest Match Ever Played,” and even in its own twisted way, “Caddy Shack.”

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We are members of a golf club (or country club) because we love playing on nice courses and we hate having our valuable time wasted by drunks and unskilled people who frequent municipal courses. We take a golf trip or two every year or so. And we probably belong to a Men’s Club. We certainly have a bunch of guys we like playing golf with.

Most of us have been playing golf for many, many years. We learned the game from our dads who are unfortunately no longer around. We learned how to be gentlemen (or women) on the course. We learned how to fix a divot. We learned how to rake bunkers, lay the flag gently onto the green or better yet, just off the green. We learned where to put our bag when we were putting. We always wanted to drive a golf cart and were secretly thrilled when we became rich enough to afford to use one. But we learned how to drive them so as to not impact fragile grass.

We came to know the pain of losing our best playing partners – our dad’s, our older brothers, our best friend, our uncle. We reached for the phone to call them when Tiger chipped in to win the Masters, only to remember at the last moment that they wouldn’t be on the line to talk to about it.

Fortunately, we have taught our children to play the game. We had to drag them at first. Baseball, basketball, and/or video games were more fun. Now they are playing pretty well. We go out together when we can. They can out-hit us but we can out putt them — our short games are better, and our guile is superior.

But it started to happen. We slowly came to feel differently about the game and where we are in relation to it. We loved things about golf that have nothing to do with the “sport” of golf. The arc of a well-struck shot, how it feels, how its sounds are much more important now than how far it went. We don’t care whether a pitch shot checks up after one bounce unless the place that it stops is the place we want it to stop. Who cares whether the shot “sucked back”? Did it stay on the green? That’s what we care most about.

Sometimes, when the time is just right, now we walk the course by ourselves. We have that old carry bag we carried when we were in high school. We fill it with the set of Wilson Staff irons we worked all summer mowing lawns to buy. Somehow, we saved them along the beautiful MacGregor Eye-O-Matic Persimmon Woods that were Dad’s and the BullsEye putter we’ve had since college. They are in the bag, too.

They should feel heavy with only that single strap to transfer the weight to our shoulder. That shoulder had the rotator cuff fixed a couple of years ago, after all. But somehow, the weight doesn’t hurt as much as it should on this beautiful evening. It’s so quiet now. Everyone has gone home for the day. It’s so quiet that you can actually hear the sound of your drive hitting the fairway 225 yards away from the tee.

They say that persimmon drivers just don’t hit the ball as far as steel faced drivers do. They’re right, they don’t. But there is little beauty in a painted club head compared to the elegance of wood carved into a club head. The sound of steel hitting ball is abrupt and harsh. There is little information that can make it to your hands because of the muting of the graphite shaft. But the feel of the ball coming off that persimmon face races to you, literally screaming to you where the ball went. You can “see” the ball, even though the cataract that is growing slowly in your right eye makes actually seeing the flight of the ball difficult.

If the persimmon head told you about the shot, it was not the only messenger. The steel shaft told you that you “nutted” it as well. Still 320 yards out, you take out the old three-wood that you saw your dad hit so many times. You take your stance, look up a couple of times, waggle twice, set and fire. Again, you know it was hit it where you wanted it, 180 yards, down the middle.

Walking down the fairway, you listen for the ghosts you know you are walking with. You can hear them, your dad told you, but only if you are if you listen. They’re laughing and joking, talking about games that were played in the misty past. They only come out at evening-time, when the course is almost empty, They only share their joy, the joy of the game, with people who deserve to hear about it, to learn about it, and to pass it on. You know they’ve nominated and elected you into their club. It’s a feeling that makes the pain go way, lightens your step, and brings a tear to your eye.

Still, you have 105 yards left. With your set of graphite shafted, technologically marvelous irons, it would be barely a gap wedge. But you know that the loft of your modern gap wedge is the same as the loft of your Staff 9 iron. So you’re not gulled. It’s the 9 iron that you grab and set behind the ball. As you draw the club back, you remember all the great times, the great lessons, and the great people you have known because of the shepherd’s game we play.

Down the club comes. You strike the ball almost at the bottom of its downward arc. The club finds the ball and dives into the ground, carving a shallow divot just in front of where the ball comes. Up the shaft comes, carrying your hands high – higher than your shoulder, almost even with your ear. Your right shoulder forces your chin to the left. Your right hip has squared itself with the left. Your body is facing the hole, now. You pick up the ball with eyes and watch it fall to the green. The ball checks up smartly, five feet below the hole.

The shot is a beautiful arc, that product of the forged steel club head. The vibration that raced up then down the shaft, through the rough, cord grips, to your hands. Whether the feeling made it to your soul like the old saying claims is debatable. But you know for sure that the feeling is like no other. Hearing the ball drop into the cup is like no other, too.

It’s a shame that all of our golf life can’t be spent like this night. It’s a shame we can’t play in the peace of a quiet course, the peace of shots purely struck with clubs that have stood up through time. It’s a shame that they have to go back to the basement to sit and wait for another day to come along. It is a shame. Isn’t it?