The Royal and Ancient Golf Club: Site of Mark's golf fantasy.

And yet, my putting, chipping, and pitching aren't so bad. During our first chipping session, I hit the flag on my sixth shot from 15 yards out. If I'd put a little less power in the ball, I would have sunk it. Driving, unfortunately, is a different matter. When I hit the ball cleanly--and by cleanly I mean when I manage to make contact, because there have been a few out and out whiffs--I almost always slice hard to the right. Only once have I hit it dead straight. This means that less than 1 percent of my shots end up going in the intended direction. It sounds terrible, I know. It is terrible. But Tiger Woods only keeps something like 70 percent of his drives on the fairway, and if he's having an off day, it goes down to 30 percent. So in actuality, on an off day Tiger Woods is only 30 times better than I am at golf. And yet he makes far more than 30 times more money than I do. I don't know about you, but that doesn't quite seem fair to me.

Regarding those RAF jet fighters I mentioned, I have spotted a flaw in their technique: They're not going fast enough. They fly at subsonic speeds, and nowhere near close enough to St. Andrews for my liking. I should be able to take a shower, then open my hotel window and blow-dry my hair in the jet wash. RAF, if you're listening, I realize gas has become disgustingly overpriced of late, so I'd be willing to kick in for a few hundred gallons if that's what it's going to take to get one of your pilots to become intimate with the afterburner.

Mark recreates Jack Nicklaus's 1970 win at the British Open.

Here's my fantasy: Standing in front of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, which is plunked right at the foot of first tee of the Old Course at St. Andrews, I let rip a cracking drive. Just as the ball reaches the apex of its 500-yard arc, a squadron of Eurofighters blasts overhead at Mach 7, dropping a sonic boom that leaves the entire East Coast of Scotland deaf for 12 hours. After an experience like that, I'd be able to leave this Earth content with the life that I have lived.

I know, some of you are thinking, Is this guy crazy? Nope, I'm just male, that's all. (An answer that roughly half of you will take as a yes.)

The truth, though, is that I could learn a lot from those jets. The problem with my drive, as Jim keeps telling me, is that I'm muscling it too much. In short, I'm trying to whack the crap out of the ball, when really I should be uncoiling my body in a very fluid manner. I've managed to do it once or twice. It feels good. It feels so good and each time I've become so drunk with confidence that I step up to the next ball and attempt to whack the crap out of it. My problems, it would seem, are undeniably mental. But you already knew that.

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