I might be the only golfer on the planet who is bad enough to 5-putt a green, and dumb enough to admit it.

Okay, I'm sure there are plenty of guys who also have notched the dreaded (and rare) "5-whack" during a round. It's really not that hard to do -- at least not if you are trying.

Then it can get easy. In fact, if I were to write a manual on how to five-putt, step one would be: "Try not to five-putt."

See, that's the odd thing about putting. The harder you try, the smaller that little hole seems to get.

I told my golfing buddy Jay -- with a sort of devil-may-care glee -- about this recently on the phone. I said "the darnedest thing happened to me the other day on the course. I five-putted."

Jay reacted with a mixture of horror and disbelief. His exact words to me were "Oh Steve. You just can't do that. You gotta practice making those. Even if it means making 100 a day."

After I calmed him down, and let him know that I was not suicidal or anything over it, he sheepishly asked how it went down. Well, it was pretty routine really. I stroked a beautiful lag putt from 35 feet to about 3 feet.

And then missed three straight 3-footers. There. Five putt.

I mean, shoot, standing over my second three-footer for a simple 3-putt, it wasn't like I was going to lag it up there just to ensure a four-putt. I had to give it a run. And I missed. What? You've never done this before?

Luckily, this little 5-putt was on the first hole of my round, which led to an immediate impulse to a) immediately drive my cart right back to the parking lot b) find a nearby TGI Friday's c) get thoroughly sheet-faced and... d) have a good long cry.

Instead, I stuck around for 17 more holes, which was a good idea, since I did "calm down" with three-putts on the ensuing three holes. Nothing soothes the ol' nerves quite like that. It reassured me that the five putt was indeed a cosmic fluke, unlikely to happen again for ... oh, months, I bet... and that I was not a horrifically inept putter, just a plain crappy one.

A lot of guys I play with, won't even line up their third putt, much less their fourth. With a typical match-play four-ball, you are assumed to put the match result first, and your honest personal score second.

But scooping away overly generous "gimmes" for bogey that don't have an impact on a match, is the height of intellectual dishonesty. I've always felt that actually putting the ball into the hole 18 times a round, is the fundamental essence of the game of golf.

If you aren't willing to do this simple act a mere 18 times over 4 1/2 hours, then what's the point? As a friend of mine once said about players who get mad when opponents don't concede seemingly "automatic" putts -- "If it's such a gimme, then just knock it in."

The act of putting in and of itself, is without a doubt the least physically demanding act in the game. Most of the things required in the full swing - strength, flexibility, balance, timing -- are not required for putting.

Putting requires proper alignment, and a reasonably judged amount of back and forth force with a flat faced club. How hard can that be? Children, sometimes as young as 7 or 8, can putt as well as avid adult players.

This is thanks in no small part to the big thing that putting does require -- steady nerves. That plus an absence of psychological demons. See, kids don't have any junk in the mental addict standing over a three-footer -- what a blessing.

Over years and years of playing golf, it is human nature to acquire a fear of missing three-footers. Why would anybody fear 3-footers more than fearing 10-footers? 10-footers are harder to make than 3-footers. Well, here's the catch: we are expected to make 3-footers. If not all the time, then at least 95 percent of the time.

So when you miss a 3-footer, your natural human instinct is first anger. "Damn! That putt was so easy! How did I miss?" The next natural instinct is for self-judgment. "Geez, I must not be a very good golfer to miss a putt like that."

Then it gets even weirder.

Then we start going deeper into the psychological "Bermuda triangle" of missing 3-footers. This is where actual shame comes into the equation, especially if the rest of your golf game is pretty good.

You start thinking: "Good god is this embarrassing! What must my playing partner or opponent think about me right now? Are they whispering about me in their cart as we drive to the next tee?" Do they tell other players: "Don't give Czaban anything outside of six inches, he's a terrible putter!"

And then you have the absolute flaming tar-pit bottom of 3-putt (or 5-putt) Hell. That is when you anticipate the shame of knowing you'll miss the next 3-footer and get extremely self-judgmental while being seethingly angry about all of it.

At this point, 3-footers cease being about 36 simple inches of smooth grass with a round ball and a hole. They are instead a mental circus of entirely unhealthy thoughts and emotions.

It's like each putt is a referendum on your whole life. Make it, and your inner voice shrugs it off as "Eh, you were supposed to make that one. It was simple." Miss it, and you'll wonder why you spend so many hours playing such a stupid game.

My friends, making 100 putts in a row every night before bed won't fix this.

For this, you need a professional shrink or a witch doctor -- preferably with a tribal leather pouch filled with Jim Beam and sleeping pills.

Plus, how would I feel the next time I miss a 3-footer when I just made 100 straight on the putting green the day before?

Look, I'm not fishing for sympathy or advice on this, although I'll say thanks in advance for any of both that you might send my way.

In the meantime, I suppose I'll just try harder while caring less, while keeping my head still with a smooth but slightly accelerating inside-to-square-to-inside stroke while understanding that 3-putts (or five) don't make me (or anybody else) a bad person, they just make for a bad score.

Oh by the way, you might want to mark yours.