The reason for that is that the developer and owner of the course told me not to, and he is a very large man who seems to be the sort of person one would be wise not to cross. 

Allow me to say, however, this man can also be trusted at his word, and there are other witnesses to the incident, so I believe it to be true without a shade of doubt. 

The owner of the course was in his office one afternoon recently and the young woman who drives his beverage cart came running in, out of breath, and visibly stunned. 

The more she tried to talk, the more she was unable to get the words out. 

"Slow down," said the owner. "Take a deep breath and then tell me what on Earth the trouble is." 

The young woman finally regained her composure and said, "There are four men out on 13 playing naked." 

I play a lot of golf and I know a lot of weird stories. 

I also know of the infamous Fort Worth Rule most other male golfers know, but it cannot be repeated here. 

But I had never heard of anybody playing golf naked. 

"This was in broad daylight?" I asked the owner of the course as he began to relate the story. 

"Broad daylight," he said. 

I asked him to continue. 

"I got into a cart and rode down to see for myself," he went on. "Sure enough, there were four of them, butt naked, except for their shoes and socks. 

"They didn't see me coming at first. I drove around and picked up all their clothes. When they finally saw me, I said, `What's going on here, boys?' 

"I can tell they were pretty drunk. One tried to explain they'd bet if one didn't get across the water, he'd have to play the hole naked and one thing led to another. 

"They apologized and asked for their clothes. I said, `Y'all seem to be enjoying yourselves so much, just keep going.' 

"I made them tee off and play the next hole naked, too. They were embarrassed as hell. One of them even started crying." 

"So, did you finally give them their clothes back?" I asked. 

"Yeah, and they said, `Well, I guess we can't come back here any more?' 

"I said, `Not for a while, boys. We'll need some time to get over this.' " 

I mentioned I've heard a lot of golf stories. There was one in a recent national golf magazine issue about a guy, angry over being far behind his opponent in a match, urinating on his opponent's ball. 

The magazine consulted a rules expert who said if an opponent urinated on your golf ball, it would clearly be inside the rules to "lift, clean and place your ball." 

Said the magazine to the rules expert, "You lift, clean and place the ball." 

I've also heard of golf shots hitting and killing birds in flight; one golfer going home and getting his gun and coming back to the course and shooting his opponent over an argument regarding whether or not a putt should have been conceded; and I saw a man shank a ball so badly against a strong wind in Scotland, it wound up 20 yards behind him. 

But naked golfing is a new one. I've been searching for a moral to this story, but one doesn't readily unveil itself. I do, however, realize golf is supposedly a gentlemen's game and gentlemen normally don't get naked in public. 

On the other hand a bet's a bet. 

So there's a dilemma here. I'd simply say, watch what you wager, not to mention, what you waggle.