"Golf," Mark Twain is reputed to have once said, "is a good walk spoiled."

Haw! It's funny because it's true!

Now here is a quick bubble-burster for you: That line actually appears nowhere in the Twain canon. Presumably some amateur funnyman dreamed it up and figured attributing it to Twain would help its shelf life. Odd how hearing that changes everything, isn't it?

"Maybe," you are thinking right now, "golf isn't so bad after all. Maybe the problem isn't the golfing per se but rather all that walking. And also all that hitting the ball into the trees when you mean for it to go straight down the fairway."

You are clever to think that. For this is the perspective underlying Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, and you need only play for a moment or two to see its genius. The game is golf with all the boring parts removed and all the fun parts made ridiculously more fun than they could ever be in real life.

It blesses you with a powerful easy swing and a confident putter. It features an enthusiastic announcer who congratulates you warmly for every par you make. It occasionally challenges you to chip out of a bunker into a cloud of gold coins hovering over the green. It never, ever loses your ball.

The game features the whole Mario gang. The stumpy little plumber is here, as is his brother Luigi. As are Princess Peach and Yoshi the dinosaur and the Kongs (Donkey and Diddy). As are Mario's and Luigi's evil doppelg䮧ers, Wario and Waluigi. (One day the name "Waluigi" will strike us all as sensible or clever or funny. In the meantime, it is a pleasant enough distraction.)

All these characters, people and critters alike, are fine golfers. As you would expect, the beefy ones like Bowser and Wario are better at the long drives, while little Peach holds the edge in the short game. That much is standard issue for sports titles of all kinds, and is frankly a bit of a clich鮠Thick waist = strong arms and all that.

The good news is that all these cute little players are talented and reliable. The better news is that somebody at Nintendo HQ figured out that the stupid boring learning curves that usually come with sports games actually are stupid and boring and wouldn't it be great if we could just leap right in and play.

In your first tournament you will shoot a few birdies and a few more bogeys and wind up with a score like Annika Sorenstam managed at the Colonial. You will also win the trophy and unlock a new course, which will raise your spirits and make you think maybe it could be worth spending a little time with this golf thing.

This is the beauty of a sports game starring ridiculous cartoon characters. It cannot be macho or tough or intimidating or any of the things sports games usually like to be, because its toughest strongest player is a big ape wearing a necktie but no pants. So instead it settles, wisely, for friendly and jolly. This is not to say there is no challenge here. You will slice your ball into the bushes many times, and you will go crazy learning to chip out of the deep rough, and you will not believe how bad you are with your putter. But with every stroke you will feel a little flash of insight, will know what you need to do differently next time. And you will do it, and round after round your scores will fall, and soon you will have unlocked the Peach's Castle course, which is full of warp pipes that conveniently teleport your ball across the fairway.

Purists will object, of course, but then they objected to Annika at the Colonial too, so how much fun are they?