Similarities aside, in some ways the game and the sport are deep opposites. Golf was cultivated for centuries. The Rules of Golf dictate every aspect of its play. Courses are built within the constraints of the game. Gambling has thrived for far longer, in a world largely void of rules and immune to attempts at uniformity. Casinos rose up because the games were so popular, so wild, so unconstrained.

Still, gambling is a game of certainty. A casino can be beautiful, opulent even, but it was constructed within the mechanics of the game. The deep interiority of the space—no windows, no clocks, the relative stillness, the dearth of reminders of the outside world—contrasts strongly with the physicality of golf and its persistent ties to the tangible aspects of reality.

Wind, sun, earth—these things matter in a world constructed with an aesthetic mind, a world of laws suggested not by mathematic probabilities, but by the true vagaries of chance and the assertion of skills. Skill, dare I say it, matters on the course. In a casino, skill is a more like a trick of the mind.

The gambler goes to the casino to put himself up against the certainties of the place, the absolute thrill of risks inherent in the turn of a card, the roll of a die, the spin of a wheel. He tests himself in a game that is, for the most part, already decided.

Golf, however, is a game of wide-open possibility that a course provides—a view, a challenge, a career shot. The risk is in the shot, in the moment, in the simple

interchange of swing, ball and distance. It too is a testing ground: you against the best the course can offer.

It is a fine test indeed. It is a measure of what we want from life itself. No wonder you want more when you walk off the course, and no wonder too that casinos know to keep the next test close by—well appointed, inviting and ever at the ready.