Smokey Robinson's game is a hit parade

LOS ANGELES – The ball does not cooperate with Smokey Robinson. Finally, mercifully, on the fourth attempt from the bunker at the 150-yard, par-3 third hole on MountainGate Country Club's Lake/North layout, the agony comes to an end. The ball finds the putting surface.

Many players might swear. Or smash their club into the sand. Or blame the cruel golfing gods for a humiliating "Tin Cup" moment.

Not Smokey. He doesn't utter a word. He slowly walks over to the 10-footer, lines it up from every conceivable angle, without the slightest hint of frustration, and pours it firmly into the cup to salvage a triple bogey – along with his ego.

"I thought I would never get out of the sand," he says as he heads to the next tee.

That sums up Smokey. While the game gives him fits – it wouldn't be golf if it didn't – he takes it all in stride, as smooth on the course as he is on the stage.

"After I started playing well, whenever I had a bad outing, it would just mess me up," he says. "I'd be angry at myself. And then I saw Jack Nicklaus shoot 80 on TV one day and I realized, 'Who do I think I am?' "

Smokey was not exactly smitten when he first took up the game in the late 1960s. He was a member of the Miracles then, turning out hit after hit as a singer and songwriter. Others in the scene, including Robert Gordy, the brother of Motown founder Berry Gordy, kept urging Smokey to join them on the links. Smokey wasn't interested. Finally, he went with them to Palmer Park, a small muni in Detroit. He shot a 66 that day on his first nine and quit after 12 holes. So much for that experiment.

Yet he stuck with it and, without warning, he was hooked. He has often gone from the airport straight to the range before heading home. He takes his towel to every green to make sure the ball is clean enough to have a good roll, underlying his seriousness.

"Golf is the heroin of sports, I tell people all the time," says Smokey, dressed stylishly in a white and blue shirt with white pants. “I take my clubs everywhere I go, especially in the summertime.”

Everywhere is a lot of places. At 71, he performs about 80 concerts a year.

"I'm very blessed," he says as he steers the cart down the fairway. "Of all the things I do musically, concerts [are] my favorite thing. I have a chance to be one on one with the fans. Most of the people who started the same time I did are either dead or you don't know where they are. I just want to be the George Burns of this end of show business."

Smokey still loves writing songs. He doesn't set aside time to compose; that's never been his way. The songs just come to him, and when they do, he calls his answering service and leaves a recording. He isn't one of those old-timers yearning for a past which no longer exists.

"I feel about music today the way I always have," says Smokey, who penned such classic tunes as "My Guy," "The Tears of a Clown," and "The Way You Do the Things You Do."

"There is some good music and some bad music and there always has been," he explains." It just so happens that we live in a world where negativity is the focal point. People talk about the negative music, not realizing how much positive music is being made."

Upon reaching his drive on No. 7, though, he is not feeling positive. His ball sits only a few feet from the lip of a bunker, leaving him with a difficult shot. He proceeds to advance the ball only about 75 yards, resulting in a bogey 6. He finishes with a 45 on the front nine, despite a promising birdie on the first and a clutch par save on No. 8, which had produced a mini-fist pump. No matter. Nine holes remain.

Smokey is familiar with second chances. In the mid-1980s, he found another habit – drugs. He would take cocaine and mix it with weed to smoke. Soon it stopped being fun and he started to hate himself. He was closer to dying than he realized. Then, in May of 1986, a friend took him to a prayer service in Los Angeles. Smokey hasn't taken any drugs since.

"I was an addict when I walked into that church and when I came out, I was free," he says. "I had so much going for myself. I was getting the chance to live out my wildest childhood dream, which proves that drugs don't care who you are, what you're doing."

On the back nine, despite consistent tee shots in the 230-yard range and a solid short game, Smokey staggers a bit. A double at 11. A triple at 13. Another double at 15. Fatigue is definitely setting in, with one shot after another missing its target.

"I can't stay out of the rough to save my life," he says.

Still, he knows enough not to become too discouraged or, for that matter, too excited.

"I once shot in the 70s three days in one week, and I said, 'I got it,' and golf heard me," he recalls. "This was about 1973 and 1974. After that, I couldn't break 90 for a year."

These days, Smokey tees it up at MountainGate, where he's been a member since the 1970s, as often as he can during breaks in his touring schedule. He doesn't have time for lessons. He never did. He does play a lot with a golf pro, Mike Brown, who is giving him a few quick tips on this day.

"Let's end it with a bang," Smokey says before teeing off on the final hole, a 453-yard par 5. "A four on this hole and all is forgiven."

It wasn't meant to be, the bogey giving him an unspectacular round of 92.

He shrugs it off. Same old Smokey.

Other popular stories on Yahoo! Sports:
• Dick Ebersol leaves NBC, will Olympics follow?
• The most powerful athletes in sports
• Ex-HS sensation's unusual route to the NBA