This one’s for Fred Wolfson, Dick Marks, Alan Smith, Harvey Schwartz, Zabby and the rest of my Friday golf group: I don’t miss you guys! I don’t miss golf or Golf Genius or the third green or the fourth hole. I do miss my 8192 view of the fifth fairway, but I don’t miss slicing the ball into the adjacent lake either.

So why did I insist on playing golf in Manila when I could have had a stressless air-conditioned bus tour on a 94-degree day in one of Asia’s more historic cities? Because I’m a suffering golfer, that’s why.

And suffer, I did.

For days I researched the best place to play so there was no chance of me missing All Aboard! on Nautica. I found Club Intramuros, which was only a drive away from the port. Oh, that’s me driving so it was a drive, two 3-woods, a 7-iron and a lob wedge away. But for days no one at the club answered my calls, texts, emails trying to get a tee time. So I just went.

Online it said it would be about $75 for greens fees, a cart, a caddy and clubs. And that’s about what I spent except for the cost of the 10 or so balls I lost.

I have some easy excuses. The rented clubs were at least 20 years old and each iron weighed as much as my entire set. I hadn’t swung a golf club in 70 days. Arnie Silver wasn’t there to tell me what I was doing wrong and tell me old jokes.

Intramuros is a short (3,751-yard) but testing par 66 public course set in what used to be a moat around Fort Santiago in the Intramuros section of Old Manila. There are plenty of fort walls and cannons to bang a ball off of, more water than Aberdeen and small, difficult greens.

I set off with Eddie Bengal At, my caddy, but there was a backup at 1, 2, 3, and 4 so we started on hole 5. Three hours later I finished on 18. Eddie was clever. He maneuvered the cart at a backup on 17 to go and play 4. Then we played 17 and jumped to 1, 2 and 3.

I was playing better because of his dizzying cart driving. Also my luck changed after a disaster on 10. It was a long par 3 almost entirely over water like playing Hole 8 at Aberdeen from the 1 tee, something I’d never do. Eddie agree with my strategy of driving the ball to the right of the water and leaving a 40-yard shot over water to the green. My drive with a 4 metal seemed perfect. Low and straight it headed to the target area, then picked up speed on the hard ground. Suddenly, one of the fort’s walls made an appearance and my great shot ricocheted at the perfect angle to send it into the drink.

Standing on the tee at 18, I’d forgotten earlier bad fortune and surveyed another long par three with no water but a line of trees on both sides of a narrow fairway. Eddie was not my only audience. Two female caddies, probably needing a laugh, stood by the tee box as I hit the same type of drive I did on 10. Low and straight, the balls zoomed by the trees bounced 30 yards before the green but rolled through and passed the promised land.

When one of the female caddies yelled, “Nice drive, Mister” I had all the inspiration I needed to rejoin the Friday group.