Fore!

I never hear that, but wish I did. Then at least I’d have time to duck before a golf ball comes tearing into our yard.

It’s like an Easter egg hunt every time we get home: two balls in the plants, one hovering near the suction at the bottom of the pool.

Occasionally, one bangs off the neighbor's shale roof - a sound so startling you spill the drink in your hand.

Our hedges used to lie low, just enough to see the course. "People love seeing the greens," the realtor offered when we moved in. But we despised watching golfers strut about, race-walking to their balls, carts zipping to and fro like big green bugs.

So we grew the shrubs high. Had them replanted, tall and thick (one can’t be too shy on these things). We told the gardeners, "whatever you do, do not cut," and stabbed red reflective poles into the ground to make the point.

Now we hear the golfers like a play behind drawn curtains. "Great shot, look at you, look at you," they crow three decibels too loud, like they’re ordering drinks in a packed bar. Often we sense them rooting around just beyond our fence line, kicking deadwood and dry leaves, muttering about their ball being “around here somewhere.”

We keep a bucket of these losers' balls - plain white, neon pink, aggressively lime green - Sharpied with initials so they know which is their Titleist or Callaway. We shank and slice these to our hearts delight when we hit the course occasionally ourselves.

At night we zip off to Drive Shack, a 65,000-square-foot monstrosity looming like a distant cousin of the Palm Beach Airport. A three-story cocktail bar with two hundred VIP sections, each overlooking a massive driving range. You get a set of clubs, two hours and - of course - AI-enabled golf balls.

At the table to our right, a hefty local swings like he’s in a batting cage, missing repeatedly, pirouetting in dizzy half-turns. His un-belted pants slouch down to his hamstrings as if he's about to spit a verse. To our left, four kids under ten are using their clubs like javelins.

Dangerous enough — until you remember the drinks flow freely. It is a bar, after all. We take bets about how many times a week someone gets hit by errant golf balls, which whip past like gunshots.

Our jittery waiter jumps in. “Oh I’ve gotten creamed a few times this week alone.” He reminds us he’s a mixologist while handing over an Orange Crush that is, functionally, bottom-shelf vodka and Sunkist.

“Earlier some buffoon did a one-arm swing and let go of the club. Hit me right in the groin,” he says, grinning as if it’s a badge of honor.

I ask if we signed a liability waiver.

Nothing of the sort.

It’s Florida. Libertarians of risk. Every golfer for himself.

At the clubhouse I’m told to tuck in my shirt. My glove is on the wrong hand. I need the right belt, the right shoes.

On the course I'm supposed to fill divots, rake traps, replace flags.

The people in front of us are annoying slow. The people behind us are aggressively fast.

Golfers will tell you it's a game of patience. That there’s nothing more relaxing than eighteen holes. That no one's keeping score. That it's all just good natured fun.

Of course it is. I believe you. Golf all you want, I say. Go ahead, spend five hours scowling and cursing. I’ll be over here on a pool float, waiting for your ball to remind me: you haven’t the faintest idea what you’re doing.