You know the situation all too well. The golf course, saturated with rain in recent days, is allowing carts on paths only. Naturally, your tee ball is nowhere near the pavement, and not knowing what club to hit, you bring several. Only later -- after a few holes, or even days -- do you discover that the extras were left behind.

Or perhaps you have perfected the old toss/flip/lob toward the cart. Only later do you realize you forgot to pick up the club.

Think about how many times that happens during the course of a day, a week, a month at a busy course.

"Right now, if I were to do an inventory, I can't tell you how long it would take me," said Kipp Bates, an assistant professional at the TPC of Scottsdale in Arizona. "Because we're a resort, we do about 70,000 rounds per year. People sometimes don't even notice the clubs are missing. They might not have a need to use that club again. Then they're back in Duluth, Kan., and realize it's gone. Sometimes they'll make a phone call, but a lot of times they don't. They might not even remember where they lost it."

"The nice ones are snatched up pretty quick," said Chad Allison, who works in the pro shop at the Grand Cypress Resort in Orlando, Fla. "You don't see too many Biggest Big Berthas or Great Big Berthas. I think the higher the price, the more careful they get."

Nonetheless, according to SafeKeeper Service, a nationwide golf club registration and retrieval service, nearly 4.5 million clubs are lost each year, resulting in a financial loss estimated to be more than $300 million.

In fact, SafeKeeper's research shows that more than 75 percent of lost clubs never make it back to their owner. Some 5 million clubs each year end up in "lost-and-found" bins across the country, which does not even take into account the number of clubs that end up in some other player's bag.

"We have quite a few clubs that are never picked up," said Laurie Gasik, who works in the pro shop at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club in Lemont, Ill. The public-access facility has four courses, one of which is home each year to the Western Open (and the U.S. Amateur this month).

"It's nothing to have 25 clubs picked up and turned in in one day. We lock them up, check serial numbers, keep track of them in case somebody calls to say they lost one. We get all kinds, Pings, Cobras. You don't see a lot of woods. People know if they are missing those. It's the irons, especially wedges. We even get some putters, which is pretty amazing. You'd think they would notice that it is missing on the very next hole."

"We've got over 100 clubs in storage," said Gordie Walker, an assistant pro at Pebble Beach (Calif.) Golf Links. "A lot of off-brand names. Very old. We get several clubs a week that are lost. But generally, most of the nice ones are returned.

"If it's a Big Bertha, the guy will likely go looking for it. He'll go back out on the course to find it."

The ones that are never claimed, however, do not necessarily collect dust in a back room. Many courses donate them to charity or junior golf programs after a certain period of time.

"We keep a log of our turned-in clubs, and we have quite a few," said Jeff Hollis, the course manager at Mangrove Bay Golf Course in St. Petersburg, Fla. "After six months, we cut them down and turn them over to our junior program.

"A lot of them are never claimed. And there is plenty of other stuff, too: wallets, sunglasses, rings, cameras. It's amazing."

Most courses will send clubs back to their owners, often after much angst on the player's part: phone calls, checking in the lost-and-found, matching everything up. And that is only if the club has been turned in.

Of course, there is a better way. Don't toss a club toward your bag or cart; if you're going to leave a wedge on the green while you putt out, leave it in a direct path where you'll be exiting; or take the 10 seconds and count your clubs before you leave the course.

"The greatest thing you can possibly do is buy a shaft band that has your name and phone number," Bates said.

-- Bob Harig

Law Review, Part I

If Peter McNamara ever plays golf again, you would expect there to be plenty of room between him and the group ahead.

The Amherst, Ohio, man was convicted in late June of felonious assault and sentenced to two years in prison for his role in an altercation at Sweetbriar Golf Course in Avon Lake two years ago.

McNamara, a 28-year-old marketing manager, had no prior criminal record and was apologetic at the proceedings where his sentence was handed down. But Lynett M. McGough, a Lorain County common pleas judge, sentenced him to the minimum term for an aggravated felony, though she could grant him an early release on probation.

"I think it's more than a little harsh," defense attorney Avery Fromet told a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "No matter who started the fight, this guy doesn't belong in jail."

The trouble began when McNamara hit into the four players in front of him, a group that included the wife of John Russo, a lawyer. Mrs. Russo, pregnant at the time, and her husband were part of a larger group of about 40 on the course at the time. After words were exchanged, Russo claimed McNamara became hostile, uttered several profanities and then threw a punch. Russo sustained a broken nose that required plastic surgery.

An appeal of the judge's decision was planned.

Law Review, Part II

Never let it be said Stephen Bevil, a Hamilton County criminal court judge sitting in Chattanooga, Tenn., overlooks the fine print.

Bevil was reading the newspaper one day when he came upon the golf scores from a local charity event. Among the players listed was James (Clint) Wolford, which came as somewhat of a surprise to the judge, who last year sentenced Wolford after the 27-year-old pleaded guilty to a charge of vehicular homicide.

Wolford had been serving six months in a work-release program, and as part of the agreement, Wolford could work during the day but otherwise was required to spend his time at the county workhouse. As part of the judge's original sentencing guidelines, Wolford's four-year prison sentence would be suspended in exchange for his participation in a work-release program, 100 days of community service and a promise not to drive for one year.

When the judge discovered Wolford had played in the golf event, he did a little additional digging and found his name among the players in two other outings this spring. Bevil then ordered Wolford to prison to serve his entire four-year sentence.

A Hard Day's Night

The Arctic Open is held with the expressed purpose of taking advantage of the midnight sun and playing through the night, but five Englishmen took that opportunity to the limit, at least for now.

Dividing into two-man teams and playing one ball each in an alternate-shot format, four London-area men set a world record of sorts when they completed 306 holes in a few minutes less than 24 hours -- 23 hours and 46 minutes, to be exact.

Tom Hawkins, Tom Priday, Bruce Hopkins and James Male completed 17 rounds at Akureyri Golf Club in northern Iceland. Even more unusual, each player used only two irons (Male carried a 5- and 8-iron, the others a 4 and 8).

Priday was an on-again, off-again member of the record-setting group. He injured his ankle six weeks before the event, which inserted Colin Gard into the lineup. Gard played six rounds before he fell ill, however, which cast Priday as a fill-in for his fill-in.

Male and Hawkins "won" the match, taking 1,573 strokes to 1,614 for the Gard-Priday-Hopkins team.

"I believe if you were a bit more organized you could get in 18 rounds," Hopkins told a reporter for golf.com. "Any more than that would be really difficult."

Such a feat requires extraordinary stamina, and on that count Hopkins and Hawkins certainly qualify. Hopkins is an avid mountain climber and has completed a 100-kilometer walk. Hawkins has completed Nepal's Himalaya Marathon.

The effort did more than put the group in the record books. The players also raised more than £15,000 for a British charity that assists cancer patients.

All These Games Drive Us Batty

We never know what's lurking in the mailbag, but it was our guess that someone eventually would claim a kinship with Mark Schuster, the man who invented Balf, the half-baseball, half-golf game ("One Ball, No Strikes," July 1996). Schuster invented his pasttime by sticking the head of a putter on the end of a Louisville Slugger, then whacking a ball around the golf course.

"A friend showed me the article because he knew that I, too, played golf with a baseball bat," writes Rich MacMillan of Frankfort, Ill. "Actually, I started playing Bolf in 1989 though I did it in a somewhat clandestine manner; I waited until the second hole to avoid confrontation with the starter and also took steps to avoid discovery by the course ranger."

Balf and Bolf, according to MacMillan's letter, took shape for much the same reason: The inventors did not derive much success from the traditional game of golf. "Bolf was fun, I hit the ball straight and at least as far as I usually do with a golf club," MacMillan writes.

But that's about where their games diverge. "I didn't stop with baseball bats," MacMillan concedes. "I expanded on a good idea and Bolf has now evolved into Free Form Multiple Implement Golf (FFMIG). In addition to baseball bats, devices such as croquet mallets, pool cues, hockey sticks, jai alai scoops, lacrosse sticks, ball retrievers, the human foot and the like are commonly used.

"As you might imagine, my golf bag always attracts some disbelieving stares. I note that Mark uses wooden bats (clats). I prefer the sound of a golf ball on an aluminum bat, which produces an almost musical chime."

There's also different scoring for Bolf. "In golf, when you lose a ball, you are also penalized a stroke. You are already out $1.50 or so, and on top of that you suffer a penalty stroke," MacMillan writes. "How incredibly harsh. In Bolf, you subtract a stroke to compensate for a lost ball. I once was on the green in minus 1 and two-putted for a hole-in-one."

As if these antics are not enough, MacMillan writes that his Bolfers will also add "themes" to the holes they are playing. "One of our favorites," he writes, "is the opposite-handed hole, where right-handers play left-handed and vice versa, though you need an uncharacteristic balance to make it work well."

Before our Members rush for pen and paper -- and we know you will -- MacMillan has a response for those who believe Bolf, Balf and similar games are a travesty.

"My approach is merely my way of dealing with my ineptness at the game," he writes. "I wish I was blessed with the talent to play traditional golf, even at the double-bogey level." Nor do the cut-up antics cause any damage to the host golf course: "Doing anything which would harm the course or interfere with others (other than causing them to laugh if they see us) is not tolerated."

MacMillan had 15 entrants this year in his championship, the fifth he's contested. A few states away, Schuster and his fellow Balfers played in the annual Clasters Championship at Shannopin Country Club near Pittsburgh, Pa. Mark Buroff and John Byers waited out a morning of rain to each shoot 99, the first time anyone broke the century mark in the championship. The ceremonial first ball was, as tradition dictates, delivered by a team of skydivers.

Keep those cards and letters coming.

Necrology

HOWARD EVERITT, who died in July at age 81, was accomplished in several aspects of the golf industry. As a player he won two Pennsylvania Amateur titles (1946, '58), three Philadelphia Amateurs ('56, '57 and '61) and, in 1972, both the World Senior Amateur and American Seniors championship. He also had the non-competitive course record at Jupiter Hills Club in Florida, where, accompanied by course architect George Fazio, he shot a 62. He also had served as a club manager at Pine Tree Club in Boynton Beach, Fla., Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club and Butler National Golf Club in Oak Brook, Ill.

Until 1985, when Neal Lancaster set the U.S. Open's nine-hole scoring record with a 29, 16 players shared the mark of 30. The first to shoot 30 for nine holes was JAMES B. McHALE, whose 30-35 in the third round at St. Louis (Mo.) Country Club was also the lowest round in Open history.

McHale was 81 when he died June 20 in suburban Philadelphia.

McHale's 18-hole record was broken in 1950 by Lee Mackey Jr. (64), but his 65 is still an Open record for amateurs, equaled only by Jim Simons in 1971.

Before he turned professional, McHale played on two victorious U.S. Walker Cup teams, in 1949 and '51.

DICK TAYLOR, 72, a golfing name synonymous with integrity and superior writing skills, was forever a journalist who never asked for an edge but when given one knew precisely how to take advantage of it. Thus, when he succumbed to a long illness July 24 in his Pinehurst, N.C., home, his wife Lynne and daughter Suzanna Fountain recognized his ever-present sense of timing, as well as his wry humor. Taylor needed a day's head start so he could greet Ben Hogan at the Pearly Gates with pen and pad in hand, ready for his first heavenly interview.

Bizarre? Certainly. But it was in the style of one of our literary treasures, a man who delighted dabbling in the off-beat but never the off-color.

Timing was everything to Taylor, a puckish maverick who knew golf and writing about it were supposed to be fun and who, in a long and illustrious career, dedicated himself to that end as he chronicled golfers' heroics.

"Dick was a tremendous man, a tremendous friend of great good judgment," Jack Nicklaus said. "You never had to tell Dick whether or not to print something you said. He was one of a kind."

Taylor was best known for his 27-year relationship with the newsweekly Golf World, which he joined in 1962 and edited from 1965 until 1989. When he joined the magazine, it was located in tiny offices above the feed and grain store in Pinehurst, N.C., where founder Robert Harlow had established the publication. Taylor nursed the magazine to such great demand that it was purchased by The New York Times Co. in 1989. After that he became a freelance writer, contributing columns to Golfweek, Links and Senior Golfer.

Born in Indianapolis, he graduated from Butler University before the Air Force made him a pilot during World War II. After the war he began his writing career in newspapers before joining Golf World. His sharp wit and keen knowledge of the game served Taylor equally well as a television commentator in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the U.S.

Taylor was president of the Golf Writers Association of America from 1980-82, after serving from 1970-78 as the group's secretary, and was a long-standing member of the Association of Golf Writers in Europe. He was a member of the LPGA Advisory Board, the World Golf Hall of Fame and Ambassador of Golf selection committees, and was named among the 100 heroes of American Golf by Golf.

Among his countless awards, he was the first recipient of the PGA of America Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism (1991), inducted into the Memorial Journalism Hall of Fame, recipient of the Donald Ross Award from the American Society of Golf Course Architects, the Joseph C. Dey Career Excellence Award and a member of the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame. --Kaye Kessler

ROGER ULSETH, 58, who died July 9 of heart failure, became executive director of the Illinois Junior Golf Association in 1992 when the IJGA, Illinois PGA and Chicago District Golf Association decided junior golf should be administered by a full-time staff. During the past five years, the program grew to encompass more than 70 playing events as well as clinics for inner-city youth. The resident of Glen Ellyn, Ill., was a member of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America and a graduate of Arizona State University.