How was it to play golf inside a prison? "Well," the youngest of the four said, "having to do the background check to get in, and then when they search your car for weapons at the gate—that's a hoot."

The thousands of incarcerated men nearby who would never leave alive was not what seemed most strange to those I spoke with; it was the personal inconvenience, or novelty, of the prison's gate. When I asked Francis Abbott, one of my assigned handlers, how it was living inside of a penitentiary, he said, "It's a little weird. You know—your kid's birthday party, explaining to people, 'Yeah, come in through the gate.'"

While my photographer ventured off into the hazy heat, I lingered beneath a mid-course pop-up tent with the staff, ostensibly interviewing them but mostly just laughing at their jokes. The prison employees were down-to-earth; a pair of gents introduced themselves as Dudu and Caca. Nobody seemed stoked to have me lurking around, but they bore it with good spirits; I liked most of the staff. A couple of the younger guys had the brittle prickishness I associate with newly minted State Troopers, but most seemed like people I'd invite fishing. I particularly liked Assistant Warden Perry Stagg, who managed to appear both authentically at ease and completely, unblinkingly alert. When I inquired innocently whether inmates might caddy on the course, he saw through it immediately. "Oh no, no," he said. "I don't think that would look good. We try to be very conscious here about how something like that might look to people."