Luck plays a bigger role in golf than most of us want to admit.  The ball that caroms off a tree into the center of the fairway, the whisper of wind that pushes a shot into a bunker, the cupcake lie you find in deep rough-luck like this always has some bearing on your score and whether you win or lose.

Now here's the bad news: Over the long haul, you're going to get more unlucky bounces than good ones by a ratio of about 5 to 1.  Why?  The unfavorable places a ball can bounce out-number the good spots the ball can go.  There's also gravity-the ball wants to settle down in tall grass.  Gravity is not your friend.

Then there's attitude.  As you age, you become aware of the bad things that can happen, and they tend to rear their ugly heads more often.  It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Steve Ballesteros, who has descended into a sort of golfing hell, agrees with me.  "When I was young, no matter where I hit the ball, I always had a shot to the green," says Steve.  "Now when I go off line, I am always dead."

Only kids are immune to my 5 -to-1 theory.  They play with an optimism that beats bad luck to death.  They have no scar tissue from past experiences.  Oh, to be a kid again.  Unfortunately, I know how hard this game really is.