Say the word golf to a random selection of people and you will provoke a range of emotions from "boredom"—as in "what a dumb idea"—to reverential—"it’s the best game in the world."

My wife concurs with Mark Twain’s famous analogy that "golf is a good walk spoiled."

Good players, by contrast, regard golf as a craft that must be honed and refined with constant practice on the range and many hours on the course. They live by Ben Hogan’s creed of practice makes perfection.

Now in case you haven’t guessed, I myself am a golfer. While the game often frustrates me mightily, what brings me back time and again is the challenge of the game itself. It’s one ball, one club, one course… one player.

And in it’s in this "onesome" that holds the greatest attraction for me. I love to play golf alone, or with people I meet along the way.

Let me explain. When you show up at a course as a "single," you will likely be assigned a partner. I have played with high-rollers from Texas, rabbis from Illinois, sales guys from New York, and fast-food operators from the Midwest, and a whole lot of men and women in between.

By far, the most interesting person I have encountered on the links was a man in his mid-fifties trying to scratch his way onto the PGA Senior Tour.

His swing was strong, and his game was solid, but his advice to me about my game was most impressive. I still carry the lessons of his tutorial with me today. And as an ex-teaching pro he confided to me that people pay more attention to their golf pro than they do their minister. Something that he felt was not quite right.

Solitary golf has introduced me to the senior golfers who frequent my local community course. Whenever they see me alone they wave me through with "Come on, young fella, play on. You’ve got to get back to work to pay our Social Security."

Their swings are shortened by infirmity and their prowess dimmed by compromised vision, but their enthusiasm for golf—or is it living?—shows no sign of abating. Their spirit, as their game, remains vigorous and empassioned.

And finally, I love the "solitary" game because it is a time to be alone with my thoughts. For me to play golf alone is a rich gift. When no one is in front, and no one is nipping at my heels in back, I have the luxury of time. There is no clock. There is no pressure. There is only the game.

And it is in this quiet time--when you can hear the birds in the early spring, or the squirrels rustling in the woods in late fall--that you can come to appreciate the game for what it truly is—one player, one game, one journey.

You never know exactly what your next shot will be… or whom you will encounter on the next tee… but you do know that whatever happens it will be part of the long lesson some of us call golf... or it is life?