There’s a plaque hanging on my workroom wall that reads: “Golf is life. The rest is just details.”

As I grow older (rapidly) I am coming to believe more and more in that philosophy. For instance, here is a list of facts and details sent by my brother-in-law Billy Coupland, the high school coach of former NBA star and now caricature golfer Charles Barkley, in Leeds, Ala.:

Did you ever notice that it’s easier to get up at 6 a.m. to golf than at 10 to mow the lawn? …

Golf is the ultimate love/hate relationship. Sometimes it seems as though your cup moveth over …

It takes longer to learn good golf than it does to perform brain surgery …

On the other hand, you seldom get to ride around on a cart and eat hot dogs while performing brain surgery …

The second nine holes of a course are called the “back” nine because by the time you get there, your back aches, play is backed up, and your opponent is about to win all his money back …

A good drive on the 18th hole has stopped many a golfer from giving up the game …

Golf is the perfect thing to do on Sunday because you end up praying a lot …

Dimples are little hollows placed on the covers of golf balls to give them an aerodynamic lift and to help players identify a ball in deep rough as theirs even if it has changed its brand, number and logo …

A good golf partner is one who’s always slightly worse than you …

That rake by the sand bunker is there for golfers who feel guilty about skipping out on Saturday and leaving the BW to do the lawn work …

Best-ball tournaments use a format in which only the lowest score of a foursome needs to be fudged, rather than cheating individually, and all the players team up to cheat as a group …

Concrete and asphalt cart paths are built around greens and tees to give golfers something to park their carts near …

A lost ball is an opponent’s missing ball after 10 seconds of searching or one of yours after 15 minutes …

Golf balls are like eggs. They’re white. They’re sold by the dozen. And a week later you have to buy more …

A pro shop gets its name from the fact that you have to have the income of a professional golfer to buy anything in there …

It’s amazing how a golfer who never helps out around the house will replace his divots, repair his ball marks and rake a bunker …

If your opponent has trouble remembering whether he shot a six or a seven, he probably had an eight …

Fairways are narrow strips of closely mown grass that separate two groups of golfers looking for lost balls in the rough …

A lag putt is called that because it’s the first quarter of a four-putt …

Golf tournaments that award gross and net prizes are held to give low handicappers a chance to show off their games and high handicappers a chance to have the rounds of their lives …

Ball mark repair tools are given to golfers at some courses so that they’ll be able to clean the mud from under their fingernails after moving a ball in a hazard …

A lot of golfers play “in the leather,” which means that a putt is given because the ball is closer to the hole than to the end of leather grip of a putter, or a player standing near the hole is close enough to the ball to kick it away with a leather shoe or pick it up with a leather glove …

The definition of a scratch player is a golfer with a zero handicap; a par golfer; a rat; a louse; a stinker …

A waggle is a move used by golfers to trigger the swing. In your case, it’s one or two waggles. In the case of your opponent, it’s at least 500 …

And the 19th hole is the only hole on which players don’t complain about the number of shots they took.