For those who may have wondered where the author of this column has been lately, the answer is exploring some of the world’s greatest golf courses on the dream vacation of a lifetime. Indulge me while I take you along for the ride.

The trip was the brainchild of Ron Ashworth, my best friend from long ago childhood days in Centralia, Mo. We’ve stayed in touch through golf, always play together in two or three tournaments a year and have shared numerous summer junkets to prime-time golfing locales.

None of them, however, could touch this one on the memorability scale.

Over the course of 11 days in Scotland and Ireland, we played 12 rounds on seven spectacular layouts that are listed inside the world top 50 by Golf magazine’s 2007 rankings.

Two of them — St. Andrews Old Course (No. 3) and Royal County Down (No. 7) — are in the top 10. Three more — Royal Portrush (No. 12), Royal Dornoch (No 18) and Turnberry Ailsa (19) fall within the top 20. Other stops on this triumphant tour were Royal Troon (No. 44) and Portmarnock (No. 49).

Our ranking upon sinking the final putts would be considerably different. St. Andrews, for instance, seemed vastly overrated, sort of like Pebble Beach is. On the other hand, when you factor in the historical implications, it was the most special of all.

I just wish my caddie hadn’t screwed up the picture of Ron and I, posing like Jack and Arnie, atop the famed Swilican Bridge on the 18th hole.

Rather than go into detail on the various courses — that will be done along with photos at a later date in the Golf Plus section — the purpose today is to offer some general observations about things we encountered and how different the game of golf is across the big pond.

The only downside of the experience was having the weakness of the America dollar hit home when exchanging it for pounds (Scotland and Northern Ireland) and Euros (Dublin). Yes, they operate on two different currencies within Ireland, which made life much more complicated for a Texan trying to figure it all out.

Think having to use a different kind of money in Dallas as opposed to Houston. Plus all their paper money looks like it came out of Monopoly game. But nothing is more painful than plunking down roughly $2.20 for a pound or a Euro.

From a golfing standpoint, the differences are as dramatic as night and day. For openers, riding carts are few and far between, and the only way you can get access to one is to have a letter from a doctor. In the course of 12 rounds, I saw one guy riding.

Everybody else either takes a caddie, carries their own clubs or rents a pull cart. Except you don’t refer to it as that. The proper term is a trolley.

We always took a caddie the first trip around anything we played, strictly because local knowledge as you wind through dunes and heather is a must. How else would you know a certain rock is the aiming point on a blind hole?

Beyond that, many of the caddies are right out of central casting. Grizzled and somewhat cynical, they can really be a hoot. Our caddies at Royal Troon, which is hosting the British Senior Open next week, talked about one of Scotland’s favorite golfing sons — Colin Montgomery — like he was a rabid dog.

Thing was, Monty grew up playing Royal Troon because his father was the club secretary for years. But the caddies had no use for him. Mine carried his clubs for six weeks on the European Tour and said it was the most stressful time of his life.