I know people will be reading this in crisp October, but as I write I’m hanging on to summer in the week before Labor Day. Summer is a time for many things. One of them, for the right-minded architect, is golf. I realize that I’ll alienate some readers here, but golf and architecture are, I believe, related activities. Golf is said to be an old person’s sport — witness Tom Watson, who almost won the British Open this summer at age 59 — and as we all know, architects, like symphony conductors, tend to flourish in their later years. I.M. Pei was 91 when his museum of Islamic Art recently opened in Qatar.

Mark Twain said, “Golf is a good walk spoiled,” a snotty comment that is usually quoted by people who’ve never picked up that amazingly crafted artifact, a golf club. Twain was seldom wrong, but this time he blew it.