Courtesy: North Granite Ridge, Port Sydney, Ontario

There are many truths in the game of golf. But one stands out for me today.

It's the maxim that you can leave the Big Stick in the bag and still play a reasonable round of golf. In other words, you don't HAVE to use the driver on every hole where the yardage indicates that you could.

That was driven home for me yesterday when my wife and I played a course in the beautiful Muskoka region, in central Ontario.

The course is North Granite Ridge and it is carved - quite literally - out of the hard rock of the Canadian Shield.

North Granite Ridge is a tight course, as their website photos will indicate. Especially when it's played from the Blue tees, a length of just over 6200 yards. I knew that when I tipped it up on the first tee, a 401 yard par-4.

But I still pulled my R5 out of the bag automatically and yanked my tee shot into a tree about 200 yards down the left side. Fortunately, I got a "member's bounce".

I pulled it out again on the third hole, a narrow 374 yard par 4. This time, the ball was gone - a push-fade down the right side into oblivion.

On the fourth hole, I thought about the R5 and went with my trusty hybrid 3, instead. I found the fairway. hallelujah.

And, from there on, I played smart golf, my malfunctioning golf swing notwithstanding.

My second shots were longer than they might have been with an expertly struck driver. But, since there was no expert to strike my driver, I accepted that I would be putting for par most of the day.

The round settled down until, out of nowhere, came the 17th hole, a monster 622 yard, dogleg left, par-5 - easily the longest hole on the course by nearly 200 yards! And the second longest hole on the course is a mere 459 yards. In fact, there's nothing longer on the back nine than 395 yards.

The 17th at North Granite Ridge is, quite simply, completely out of character. But standing on the elevated (thank goodness) tee box, a new delight awaited me: an enormous "patch" of granite rock about 220 yards in carry off the blue tees.

The wind was at my back and blowing strong. I had no choice. Out came the R5. That mass of Canadian Shield lay in the middle of the fairway like a submerged rock in Georgian Bay, just waiting to rip the keel out from under me.

I nutted my drive. Double Hallelujah. The ball sailed out and down the middle. I watched and prayed.

The ball landed and shot straight back into the blue sky off the granite pile like it was fired from a gun.

The golf gods smiled on me and the ball landed a further 20 yards out, just past a stupidly placed boulder, smack in the middle of the short grass.

It was, I must admit, with all things considered on the day, a pretty decent drive. But I hadn't reached the dogleg. I was faced with trying to cut the corner with an iron.

I opted for a 5-iron which I can hit quite well. Usually. This time, the ball shot off the clubface low. Another small mercy from the golf powers; the ball sailed THROUGH the trees but landed in the rubbish along the tree line. I had no choice but to punch out my third shot. The rock-hard fairway did nothing to slow down my ball, parting like the Red Sea for Moses, and my Nike came to rest in some reeds, about three feet from the water hazard.

So much for punching out. Now I was 166 yards to the center of the green. After running my fourth shot up to the edge of the green, I chipped a beauty to within a few feet and salvaged a bogey.

As I said, that old golf maxim is that you can leave the driver in the bag without penalizing yourself. And I concur.

But there are times when the driver really is a "rescue" club.