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While campaigning to become the next leader of the Liberal Party, Bob Rae has also been getting out for some golf. A keen student of the game, he was doing that recently at his home course, the Weston Golf and Country Club near Toronto, "the least pretentious and friendliest club I found," he said.

Rae was playing with his friend and fellow lawyer Charles Scott. Rae invited me along -- we're friends and have played golf a few times. Like golfers anywhere, Rae and Scott were at each other from the first hole.

"Stop, stop, stop," Rae said as Scott's 20-foot putt for par from behind the hole on the slick first green raced along. Scott had hit it too hard. Was Rae urging it to stop because of that, or because he wasn't eager to see his friend make the putt and win the hole? The hole got in the way, and the ball fell in.

"What do you mean, stop?" Scott came back at Rae. They were off and running, well, walking and golfing with their clubs on their shoulders. Rae had flown into Toronto after a fundraising dinner in Montreal the night before, and had come directly to the course. He'd gotten up at four and taken the 5:30 a.m. flight.

By the time Rae and Scott got around to the par-four fifth hole, they were in full conversational flight. The talk was mostly golf talk. The course was pretty much a politics-free zone.

The par-four fifth at Weston, a classic old course where Arnold Palmer won his first pro tournament, the 1955 Canadian Open, is tough. The sloping fairway topples over the brow of a hill and across a stream to a green that drops sharply from back to front. Stories have been told for years of golfers three, four and even five-putting from above the hole.

Rae, an 12-handicapper, was suffering on the hole, and had an 18-inch uphill putt up for a double-bogey. He was about to hit his putt, when Scott conceded it to him. Scott didn't want to see what might ensue if Rae were to knock that short putt above the hole. That way lies four or five-putt territory, and an unhappy golfer.

"I'm the official campaign ego booster," Scott said after telling Rae his putt was good.

Rae was wearing a golf cap with the initials OLGS, for the Ontario Lawyers Golf Society. He was on the Ontario team that won the 2004 European Legal Team Championship in Novo Sancti Petri, Spain. The matches return to Spain again next year, and, Scott said, "I hope Bob will be there."

He also hopes Rae will be elected Liberal Party leader during the convention Dec. 1 to 3 in Montreal, and, later, the prime minister of Canada. Whatever happens, Rae is the latest in a long line of politicians who have enjoyed golf. The list includes U.S. President George W. Bush, former presidents Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, and former Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien.

Rae's played throughout the world, sometimes as a guest of other golfers but often after making up his own games. He and Scott belong to the County Louth Golf Club near Dublin, a links that offers adventurous golf. Rae's also an admirer of the rugged Highlands Links in Cape Breton, N.S.

"It's one of my favourites anywhere," he said. Kanawaki in Montreal is also a favourite,

"When I was premier [of Ontario, from Oct. 1, 1990 until June 26, 1995], everybody wanted to take me out, but the invitations stopped when I was no longer premier," Rae said, smiling.

Golf's a way for Rae to relax, but also to do some good. Since 1996, he's hosted an annual, low-key event to raise money for leukemia research, most recently at Eagles Nest Golf Club, just north of Toronto. His younger brother David died in June 1989 of lymphatic cancer, a type of leukemia, despite a bone-marrow transplant from Rae.

As for golf, Rae finds more than the obvious in the game.

"It keeps you human," he said at Weston, where he shot 84, finishing with two pars. "It teaches you that just when you think you're on a roll, you can be brought slamming back down to earth. I like the fact that with handicaps, you can have a match with anybody. It's the fun of the contest."

Clearly, Rae thrives during a contest, on and off the course.

rube@sympatico.ca