A good walk.

• Position: UPFRONT - Geographic overview

The editor in chief of this magazine doesn't understand my obsession with golf, and I get his bewilderment. How, after all, did a game with sometimes stupid rules and terrible fashion sense generate, according to a North Carolina Alliance for Golf study, $5.3 billion for the state in 2007? All I can say is that golf, for most of us, is hardly ever about the golf.

My grandmother took me abroad after I graduated from high school, just as she had my brothers. It was something of a tradition: We picked a point on the globe, and she led us there. I could have visited the Great Wall of China, the Eiffel Tower or the coffee houses of Amsterdam, but I chose Scotland. The Campbells hail from there--where we slaughtered the MacDonalds as they slept during the Massacre of Glencoe--but nostalgia had little to do with my decision.

I was a capable golfer in high school, but passion outweighed my ability. I spent most of my time at the course learning to gamble, filch beer and lie about women. Passion made tough memories, too. I once dragged my putter along the cart path for three holes to punish it for a three-putt. So given the option of any place on the planet, 1 picked my mecca: The Old Course, St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf.

But it wasn't without trepidation that I boarded the plane to London. My grandmother was a daughter of the Depression who had a hard time letting go of cereal boxes, even after they'd been colonized by ants. 1 was a spoiled son of '90s excess who didn't know why his father's mother got upset after he threw out a full glass of orange juice. (I don't like pulp.) I knew she loved me, and I hope she knew I loved her, but 1 don't think we understood each other. Sure enough, the first few days were rife with awkward conversation and embarrassment. I wanted to blend in. She wanted to walk the streets in a...