It is early dawn, and I am out on the golf course. It has been a whopping three months since my last round. The darkness has yet to lift, and the surroundings are filled with a chorus of crickets and toads. A sun like a blazing furnace is poised to rise soon.

Priding myself on knowing a thing or two about golf, I know exactly how grueling today will be for both my body and mind. With every passing hole, my physical state will undergo nothing short of a metamorphic change.

Standing on the first tee box, my mind wasn't preoccupied with my upcoming driver shot. Instead, I was struck by a question: Why on earth are there only Korean golfers under the scorching sun of faraway Laos? They absolutely dominated the course. The caddies already knew exactly who was playing with whom.

• CEO Kim & CEO Lee
• CEO Jang & Director Park

It reads like a directory for a Korean law firm. If it weren't for Koreans, these caddies would be out of a job. It is a moment where you truly feel the economic clout of South Korea. Golf is not a sport just anyone can enjoy. It requires a lot of money, time, and friends. On the golf courses of Laos, Koreans are the aristocrats, while the Laotians can almost appear as their servants.

As I swung my driver, I realized that while my mind might have forgotten, my muscle memory was still very much alive. The ball effortlessly cleared the bunker on the right at the 150-yard mark, just like it usually does. Surprising even myself, I let out a sigh of relief.

The real problem began with the second shot. I completely forgot I even had a rangefinder, and worse, I was completely at a loss as to which club to use and how to swing it. In that split second, a wave of panic washed over me that no one else noticed. Fortunately, muscle memory soon overtook the shock. I grabbed my 3-wood and choked down on the grip. I positioned the ball towards my right foot. The result, however, was a 30-yard wormburner. I had lifted my head. It was a mistake I occasionally made even when I played frequently.

For my third shot, with 100 yards left, I pulled out my pitching wedge. I prayed silently, Please, just don't chunk it. Thankfully, I avoided hitting it fat. The ball launched high, flew in a near-straight line, and stopped just two meters from the pin. A guaranteed 'conceded bogey.' It was a situation where I could echo what a friend of mine always says after every shot: "Not bad."

The faces of countless people I've played rounds with over the years flash through my mind. Most were chance encounters; some felt like fated connections. But in my world of golf, the sole protagonist is me. No one else stands out in particular.

Except for one person. He is currently the best golfer in Laos. He always wins high-stakes matches and commands a massive fandom, leading the golfers who visit Laos. If you want to play a round with him, you have to accommodate his schedule and seek his permission. For him, golf has practically become a business.

When I play with him, my game naturally improves. Golf is a sport where playing alongside someone skilled inherently elevates your own game. The 7th hole at LCC (Lao Country Club) is a par-4 dogleg where you can't even see the driver's landing zone, let alone the pin. It is such a long hole that most people treat it like a par-5 and are perfectly content just getting on the green in three. Yet, playing alongside him, I've managed to reach the green in two ('two-on') on that very hole twice. With my skill level, the impossible became possible.

Watching the trajectory of his ball soaring toward the pin brings me a sense of peace. There is an absolute certainty that the ball will land near the hole—a feeling of both reassurance and awe. It is almost magical to watch his putt from the far edge of the green get sucked right into the cup. It feels like witnessing an 'artist at work' firsthand. No one gets to watch me work. But he proves his artistry in every single round. That is the true mark of a 'Master.' His mastery of his craft is so absolute that he doesn't make the same mistakes we do. Occasionally, a single passing comment from him yields the effect of a $1,000 lesson. Wrapped within that one remark is profound golfing philosophy and technique. To me, he is the Picasso of golf—at least here in Laos.

My old habits began creeping back in on the 3rd hole. The 2nd hole was a par-5, which I easily saved for par. But on the 3rd hole, my drive hooked into the left rough, I lifted my head on the second shot, and a combination of poor club selection, a botched shot, and shaky putting led me to commit the score I dread the most: a double bogey.

The next hole was a long par-3. It’s a spot where you can aim for a hole-in-one, with various prizes on the line, including a one-year membership. Looking down at the ball at my feet before swinging, the exact same thought always crosses my mind: "Pleeease... hahaha!!!!!!" Fortunately, I hit the green and finished with a par.

Having skipped the driver on the previous hole, I managed to completely forget my driver swing in that short time. I opened my left shoulder too early on the downswing, sending the ball hooking left. Still, the fairway on that hole was wide, so the ball landed in the semi-rough. I hit a reasonably clean follow-up shot, but... it went straight into a bunker. I absolutely loathe bunkers! The bunker sand I imagine belongs at Augusta, not this hard dirt pan. Ultimately, I finished with a bogey. Well, not bad.

The hole that followed was an incredibly long par-4; even decent players struggle to reach it in two. It's the kind of hole where you have to rely heavily on your putter just to scramble for a par. Then came another par-3. It was a near hole-in-one, but I missed a short birdie putt, forcing me to settle for an unsatisfying par. On the next par-5, I spammed a series of mediocre shots but somehow managed to save par. By the time I reached the 9th hole, I started hallucinating that the entire round was already over. I mindlessly took a full swing with my driver, only to blast the ball into the adjacent hole's bunker. Anticipating that I would hit sand before the ball, I clubbed up three full stops, yet my approach shot still came up short. But with a stroke of luck, it stuck close to the hole, and I carded a bogey. Not a bad hole, either.

Ah! Game over, I thought.

Time had dragged on so heavily that I genuinely tricked myself into believing it was finished, even though there were still 9 holes left to play. As we entered the back nine, my hip joints began to ache, and my toes started cramping. By the time the round was winding down, I felt like someone stranded on Mars with barely enough fuel left to return to Earth. I finally understood why I had started to hate golf.

All my life, I've been told I am athletically gifted. As a child, I was the best at everything. However, the supposed prime of life—'youth'—is the biggest scam in the world. It passes by in such a fleeting flash that it only ever exists in the past tense: "Those were the days." Who wasn't amazing when they were young? Youth is simply the greatest con in human history.

This is the lesson that golf teaches us: human beings can never be perfect. Sometimes things go exactly your way, but other times, you find yourself in the absolute worst situations. Ultimately, what matters is whether you possess the skill to extract yourself from those bad situations. To achieve that, you must hit tens of thousands of golf balls every single day, to the point of utter nausea. Only then do you develop the bare minimum of physical coordination and mental fortitude required to escape a crisis. And even if you do all that, you cannot stop until your body simply gives out. Because youth is so agonizingly short, and a new generation of youth is already right behind you, barking at your heels. How one chooses to accept this reality is what makes a person who they are.

As I wrap up this round after three months, this is the conclusion I've reached: To me, golf is nothing more than a casual pastime to enjoy with close friends—or rather, close acquaintances, since I don't really have many friends. It is simply a way to dedicate time to checking on my physical and mental health; nothing more, nothing less.

I genuinely thought I was still a young man. Like so many things in life, what a colossal lie that turned out to be. Still, deceiving myself is far better than deceiving others.