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"Why certainly," said Frank. "Shot 69. Lead Nelson, Hogan and Snead."

"You shot 69 Frank," I replied, leading the pro further. "And you lead Nelson, Hogan and Snead?"

"Aha," Frank muttered, nodding affirmatively with a fresh Pall Mall dangling from the corner of his mouth like an appendage.

"Well what happened next?" I demanded to know. "Did you win the tournament?"

Without so much as flinching, Frank took a long drag from the cigarette and then said, "Went out that night, got drunk, got blow'd, came back, shot 81 and missed the f**ckin' cut."

This is where I grew to love golf, around a picnic table at Dorneyville Golf Center. The state of Pennsylvania eventually bought the land so they could build a road. By the 90s, Dorneyville Golf Center was gone, and today it looks like a thousand other towns in America, with a Carabba's on the spot where the 12th hole used to be and a Dunkin' Doughnuts down by the 14th.

Frank died a few years after they bulldozed the Golf Center. He lived alone in the old Hotel Traylor on 15th and Hamilton. We were his family. He had nowhere to go. His spirit disappeared with Dorneyville Golf Center.

I returned years later on a cold day in late fall, just to look around. The unfiltered cigarette skittered past me.

I guess we never did get around to picking it up.