When I was a boy, I sometimes had to fight for the privilege of carrying a grown man’s golf clubs. That was before caddy carts.

Caddy jobs were scarce enough that fists could settle who got one. Once hired, bloody-nosed, I shouldered a heavy leather bag and followed grown men around 18 holes while they tried to knock a little white ball into a hole in the ground. I learned which club to hand them, watched where their balls landed, wiped dirt from their irons, and kept quiet when they prepared to swing.

I knew golf from the servant boy’s side.

My father eventually took up the game. So did my brother. Despite all my hours caddying, I never did. The whole business seemed faintly absurd. Why would a grown man spend four hours knocking a golf ball around acres of grass, getting frustrated because it refused to go where he wanted it to go?

Yet millions of otherwise sensible people have surrendered themselves to golf. Obviously, something more is going on. Let’s watch a golfer approach an important putt. He studies the green. He stalks around the ball. He squats and examines the slope. He feels the wind. He rises, selects his line, approaches the ball and gets real still.

Everyone else becomes still with him. Not a creature is stirring, it seems. Talking stops. Spectators freeze. Even television announcers lower their voices. For a few seconds, nothing seems more important than the passage of a small white ball across several feet of carefully trimmed grass.

Then the putter moves and taps the ball with a faint click. The ball rolls toward the hole, approaches it, circles the rim, and drops in. Perclunk.

Jubilation. People let out a held breath. Squirrels can squeak and birds chirp again.

A grown man thrusts his fist into the air, triumphant. Spectators erupt. His playing partner congratulates him. Crowds watching from the grandstands rejoice. More may celebrate in their living rooms.

All because a ball sank into a hole.

I used to see only the absurdity. Now I wonder whether the absurdity is precisely what makes golf so attractive.

Golf has acquired nearly everything necessary for a religion of its own. It has sacred grounds maintained with extraordinary care. It has prescribed clothing and implements. It has an extensive body of laws — a governing doctrine of conduct on the fairway. It has a vested magisterium that interprets those laws and imposes penalties on transgressors. A conscientious golfer who commits an infraction may call the penalty on himself when nobody else has seen it. There is something solemnly religious about that. The laws of conduct must be obeyed, even when the only witness is the offender. God is watching.

Then comes the accounting of acts. Listen to golfers after a round. Every failure is remembered. The drive that hooked into the woods. The foolish club selection. The missed three-foot putt. The disastrous seventh hole. Each transgression is hauled out, examined, and explained.

Penance is completed over a glass of wine with a mentor; absolution follows. At next Saturday’s ritual there will be another round to confess.

Golf also offers something increasingly difficult to find: enforced silence. Nobody is allowed to shout during the backswing. Nobody walks across the golfer’s line. For those few seconds over the ball, the player must put everything else aside. His action becomes the sole focus of attention for several silent moments, enjoyed because of their rarity. The past is useless. The next hole does not yet exist. There is only this one stroke.

Perhaps that is the secret to golf’s attraction.

We live surrounded by noise, distraction, anxiety, and endless demands on our frayed attention. Then someone hands us a club, tees up a white ball at our feet, and gives us an impossible task: Being still under stress.

The golfer who manages it successfully receives his reward. The drive lands perfectly. His ball stops not far from the hole. His long putt somehow finds the center of the cup. For perhaps a 15-minute afterglow, he has found what he was seeking.

Then the satisfaction fades. Another hole awaits him. Another round must be played. Another perfect shot remains somewhere ahead.

As a boy carrying those heavy bags, I thought grown men were wasting their afternoons pursuing a dumb ball. Perhaps my mistake was thinking they were only trying to sink a golf ball into a hole.

Decades later, I am not so certain it is a wasted effort. Maybe sinking a golf ball in a hole is the tangible manifestation of an inward pursuit of that solemn, reverent stillness. “Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch course, the space between your ears,” quipped Bobby Jones.

Golf promises order, silence, discipline, confession, penance, fellowship, and occasional jubilation. It even provides a manicured green sanctuary in which to practice its virtues. And like every successful religion, it keeps its believers coming back for more.