Golf courses can be strange places. You arrive at the pro-shop, pay your money, and anything can happen after that. Yesterday, our golf partner immediately starts talking about "The Secret" - a book. It's about extremely successful people who simply kept wishing for success every day every hour, and that this desire formed its own energy, and finally they got what they were wishing for. "What you think is who you become".
The guy calls himself "Scottie". Enormous. Big shoes. Flat feet.
He drove truck for 20 years. Then his life starts falling apart. Loses job, loses wife, goes into free fall. Somehow, he gets on the Oprah show. She is chatting with a woman who espouses the philosophy described above. Scottie gets interviewed from the audience and tells his story. He gets hired by this woman's company. He hauls equipment and lighting to all the live shows put on by this woman and her husband. I am adding a YouTube link so that you can get a feeling for what this lady is all about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTb6mKAwftA&feature=related
Scottie says that his life has changed completely because of this woman and her philosophy.

Today we start talking with the "starter" - the guy who gets you on the first tee. He says he can put us on in 17 minutes. Meanwhile a smallish woman walks over to ask if we are the "Rices". "No? Oh I was wishing you were the Rices and we thought you would be perfect to golf with."
All kinds of things can happen in a golf lineup. Someone doesn't show up. Someone is late. People start talking to each other. Our case was a perfect example. The starter shouts "Rice?" "Rice?" "Is there a "Rice" here"? No answer. He walks over to the smallish woman. We are standing together at this point. "You and your husband were supposed to golf with Rice?" "Yes, but if there is no "Rice", we would be happier golfing with these folks" indicating us. "That's just fine", the starter says. "You're right after this foursome".
Such is a game decided.
It can be fun, or not fun. Partly fun, and sometimes little bits of everything.
In this case, the smallish woman played golf quite a bit better than the husband, so he starts telling jokes. The more poorly his game went the more jokes.
In a perfect golf world, we shake hands while sharing first names. Conversation is sparse, impersonal, but at-a-distance friendly. We are all there to play golf and try to get a good score. Not to win friends and influence people. Hand shakes again at the 18th. The end.