I’ve only played golf a few times. The first course I played on was a converted farm in Michigan, straight and level with few trees. My kind of course.

The Bay Area is too hilly for golf. I remember trying to hit off a tee in Berkeley, looking down from above at distant fairways with trees and people scattered everywhere, and everything in the way. It was a long way down, and the probability that I would not hit someone or something was as vanishingly small as the distant green.

When my wife and I finally got back from Berkeley—our sons enjoyed riding in the golf cart—we hid our newly purchased golf clubs in a corner of the garage, not wanting to be reminded of all the money we had spent. Anyway, we reasoned, golf took up too much weekend time to be compatible with marriage, children, work and sanity.

So it was strange that I found myself watching Tiger Woods at the end of the US Open, leading by 15 strokes, breaking one record after another. Like me, even if you don’t care at all about golf, you know about Tiger, and wonder about the ranking of Tiger’s achievement.

Was Tiger’s accomplishment more significant than Mark Spitz’s 7 gold medals in the 1972 Olympics? Does he dominate golf the way Michael Jordan dominated basketball? Perhaps Tiger’s win could be considered comparable to Mark McGwire’s 70 home runs?

No matter how good someone might be, we have this fascination with knowing whether he’s the absolute best. Unquestionably, Tiger’s the best golfer right now, and perhaps he’ll be the best of all time, surpassing Jack Nicklaus’s 18 major-tournament wins. But personally, aside from Tiger’s good looks and incredible talent, I don’t understand what all the fuss is about.

Baseball is obviously the best sport.

Except for me, just about everyone else you know probably plays golf. Why? Because when you golf, you chase the ball. The golf ball just sits on a tee or in grass or sand, patiently waiting for you to whack it. You can take your time, dance around a bit, think, take practice swings. But finally you decide to hit it. And you do hit it. Every time. Maybe not well, but that’s your fault, because golf is a major guilt trip. It’s organized pay back for original sin. You give the ball a knock. You chase it.

In baseball, the ball chases you. It’s always coming at you, and it’s hard. Real hard. Can you imagine the reaction I’d get if I called up friends on the weekend suggesting a round of hardball? They’d think I was nuts. Baseball may not be a contact sport, but it sure is intimidating, and pick-up hardball is not the kind of thing we do, even when we’re young.

In golf, if you practice, you may get better. In baseball, even if you practice constantly, you’ll probably get worse. Oh, you may become a better fielder or pitcher, but no matter how much you practice, there’ll always be a pitcher who’ll keep you from hitting the ball most of the time. There’s no time to think. He throws. You swing. You miss.

And why can’t you learn to hit? Because the pitcher’s throwing a ball, not much bigger than a golf ball, at up to 100 miles an hour, from a mound 60 feet 6 inches away. As some of you probably know, getting hit by a hardball thrown by your little leaguer at 50 mph hurts like heck. (I still have a bruise on my shin from my son’s curve ball.) Since kinetic energy goes as the square of the velocity, a major-league fast ball delivers 4 times the energy. You’ve seen those bats break. Ouch!

No. For golf to be a great sport, comparable to baseball, the other golfers on the tour will have to pitch overhand—fast—to Tiger. It’s probably the only way they’ll be able to beat him. Then we’ll see if Tiger can hit like McGwire. (Maybe Nicklaus could stay on as DH.)