Just about every golfer in this area has played Tyee, the unique track at the south end of Sea-Tac Airport.

Many years ago I played it pretty often. That was when George Puetz was the pro. It had a driving range, a sizeable pro shop and lot of interesting holes.

It was, then as now, the noisiest course in the world with jets landing and taking off at probably a hundred feet overhead.

It is now owned by the Port of Seattle and undergoing major surgery in the whole layout, and last week I got in nine fascinating holes.

Serious golfers who play for reasons other than exercise and communing with nature like I do would be impatient with the bumpy weedy fairways and the lack of sand traps. Or the bulldozers and backhoes.

I didn't mind. The greens were soft and the many ditches you had to detour around provided an adventure trip well worth the $10 price for as many holes you wish to play.

On the third hole you are staring at a big brick maintenance house about 200 yards out. I don't know why it was there. Son Tim could hit it over the roof and did. I had to go around it, a detour that took me nearly to Normandy Park.

When I got to the green I could see the federal slammer up the road. It is another big brick house. About half a mile away, this one is more like a very tall condominium and has hundreds of little windows too tiny for anyone to slip through.

It was spooky knowing that maybe a lot of bad guys were watching me three putt the green and were hooting and hollering at my discomfort.

Hole number six brought back a moment of 30 years ago. I was playing with Tim then, also. It is about a 290-yard hole and some players were on the green so Tim thought it was safe. His ball hit a golfer still in the bunker alongside the green.

"Good shot, son. Don't tell your mother."

Best moment for me was on number seven. I ran in a 30-foot putt for a par just as a 747 roared over so low I could see the pilot. I swear he saw that putt and gave me a thumbs up.

Mark Olson is the pro now and says play is pretty steady in spite of the heavy equipment the Port is operating in building a drainage system to preserve some wetland. He said the new 18-hole layout will cross over to woodlands south of 200th Street.

Golfers at Glenacres and Rainier are so used to low-flying jets nobody even notices them anymore and that will happen at Tyee also.

Preserving a public golf course is a wonderful thing for the Port to do.