Until I started playing golf, I thought that wine tasting had to be the most confusing thing I'd ever done. People with names like Higgins rambling on about residual sugar and tannin, describing each quarter-ounce sample in terms like "full-bodied, yet unpretentious." And I could never remember whether I was supposed to age it, chill it or drink it with fresh fish during a full moon. Just when I thought I was a genius for knowing the difference between a cabernet and cabaret, I went to the pro shop for golf balls.

"What kind?" the pro asked.

"I dunno, white, I guess.”

He rubbed his hands together as he scanned the tri-level ball display. "Do you want a two-piece ball?" I though this was a joke, of course. "No," I said. "I like to start off with them whole. They'll break when I wallop them with my driver.”

"Oh," he said without as much as a smile. "A big hitter. Then you want distance.”

He handed me a shiny box with gold lettering. The price tag on the end was more than I'd paid for dinner for my wife and I the previous evening.

"These have computer-generated dimple patterns and use a complex two-piece injection molding system. They offer blistering distance.”

"Perfect," I said. "Course I'll probably overshoot the green now on any hole less than four hundred yards.”

He still didn't laugh. He just removed the box of balls from my hand and said, "Aahhh ... stopping power.”

He slid another brightly colored box across