I was told recently that a woman’s threshold of pain is nine times that of a man’s. This didn’t seem right to me at first. Sure, women have babies (even though most women are wimps and use pain killers), but we men do really macho things like smash beer cans on our foreheads.

Despite what I was told, I was very confident that men had the higher threshold of pain until Saturday when I went golfing for the first time of the season.

Every year I spend all winter looking forward to going golfing. Some days it occupies all of my thoughts. I hold a golf club in my hands in anticipation of the snow melting so I can play the heavenly sport once again.

The night before the season’s first round of golf is always a sleepless one. Friday night was no exception as my thoughts were filled with golf and all the joy it would bring me.

I carried this feeling of ecstasy with me all the way to the first tee on Saturday afternoon. Looking like a pro, I pulled out my freshly-washed driver and placed a brand new ball on the tee.

Then, using the golf swing I spent all winter perfecting, I hit the ball and watched it soar, in my best estimation, 25 feet.

Unfortunately, things never got much better (they never do), and after a few holes I started to remember the lesson I learned the last time I went golfing, which is that I hate golf. In fact, all men hate golf.

I think the invention of par has a lot to do with this. For those who don’t know, “par” is a ridiculously low score that a good golfer is supposed to get in a given round of golf. Also, a “good golfer” is defined as “a golfer who cheats” because actually shooting par is almost impossible.

But even men who do play well still don’t have fun. Just look at the pros. They actually do shoot par, but if you looked at their faces you’d think golfing is the most painful activity on the planet.

That’s because golf IS the most painful activity on the planet. But we men are not equipped to handle this kind of pain. This causes us to do crazy things like throw clubs, curse and try to smack furry woodland creatures with our four-irons.

In fact, men will show much more anguish on a golf course than they will at, say, their parents’ funeral.

Women, however, are impervious to the pain of golfing and can often be seen enjoying themselves on golf courses.

As far as I’m concerned, that is solid enough evidence that women can withstand more pain than men. But I’m also going to go out on a limb here and say that women are smarter than men as well.

And I’m not just talking about the occasional dumb things men do, such as withdrawing $50 from an ATM machine and driving off without taking the money.

I’m talking about continual stupidity. For some reason, when we men leave a golf course, we start to forget how much we actually hate the stupid sport.

Eventually, we get wacky notions about being good golfers and even yearn to play it again.

Today, when I sit and read this column, I’ll probably be thinking, “who screwed with my column? I’d never write this crap — golf is the greatest sport in the world!”

By today, I will have completely forgotten how painful it is to play golf and will actually be quite eager to pay $25 for the privilege of golfing again.

I, like most men, have poured a ridiculous amount of money into the game of golf and feel this uncontrollable need to buy the most high-tech equipment.

We have this odd notion that buying the most expensive golf balls will improve our play, despite the fact that all golf balls perform just as well when they are sitting at the bottom of a lake, which is where most of mine wind up.

This is why women are so much smarter than us. Most of them realize they are going to suck no matter what they do, so they are perfectly happy using hand-me-down clubs they got from their grandmother.

This brings us to today’s final lesson, which is that men never learn anything.

This is especially true for men who have read my columns. We will always golf, always hate it and always spend buckets of money on it.

Enjoy your summer, and stay as far away from the golf course as possible.

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Peter Borchers is a sophomore in advertising from Bloomington, Minn. Thank you for not shredding this column up and using it for kitty litter like his parents do.