Much is made of the best lunches in golf. The National Golf Links of America has its lobsters. Of course, there's the famous coat-and-tie-clad carvery table under the handwritten rules of golf at Muirfield. On Scotland's West Coast at Prestwick, lunch is a jovial affair. Members and visitors mix in the best possible way at the communal table in one of the most stunning rooms you might ever see. These meals are memorable, but when punctuated with 4 to 18 saturated holes in the afternoon, they make a whole new impression.

Often we lose sight of the positive effects of time-honored rituals that golf offers up so generously. Coffee, kummel, golf clothes, 18 holes, drying room, shower, jacket and tie, beers, lunch, kummel, 18 more holes, beers and then off to dinner. This, on a long summer day at Prestwick in Scotland, is an unrivaled leisure activity. When people complain that golf takes to long I know they have never lived life like I have. I feel bad that they will never understand.

Lunch tables are populated automatically with at least one bottle of red wine and one white. This is the natural way; there's no discussion. Perhaps a Pimms if the strawberries are good? Or a pint of lager beer to begin. Eventually you make your way into the dining room and are seated at one long table all mixed together in what must be the most social affair in UK golf. After a proper lunch you make your way back into the smoke room for coffee or more drink. Then it's back into the locker room for a hazy reconstitution of your golf clothes, and before you know it, you are taking the most wobbly 5 iron of your life.

The after-lunch round of golf is always dubious. The choice for me is simple. Drink or play golf. You can mix them, but the quality of the golf is always in question. At Prestwick, after lunch, this doesn't matter. You already played your own ball in the morning and that score is what it is. You played fresh and did your best. The afternoon is about having fun. You might be playing as a group of 5. Better yet, you will be playing foursomes with generally questionable collective fitness on all sides. I can tell you, there aren't many things as humorous as being a partner to someone after a lunch like you both just had.

People ask me often what my favorite golf course is. Depending on what's in my head, I rattle off various places I really love (and yes, I understand how obnoxious this list is). Fishers Island. Peachtree. RCD. Machrihanish or maybe the Donald Ross muni by my childhood home in Northeast Ohio. In my heart, though, there's only one true answer: Prestwick.

Of course, it's a historic links and the birthplace of The Open Championship, but it's the entire picture that truly moves me. It's bigger than 18 holes of golf. It's a combination of the ritual of the day, the club's traditions and the conviviality of the people. Walking on the final loop of holes this summer, I started to really understand how special a place it is. Though in fairness, there's part of the afternoon golf that I don't quite remember. That probably only makes it better.