The fundamentals of golf are important. One of them is enjoying the game.

Somewhere between paying bills, scheduling dentist appointments and trying to remember passwords, adults quietly stopped playing.

As kids, we could spend six hours trying to hit one rock with another rock and call it a great day. Nobody asked whether we had accomplished anything. Nobody tracked our progress or suggested we set more measurable rock-hitting goals. We played simply because it was fun.

As adults, we have become so obsessed with productivity that even fun has performance metrics. We no longer take walks; we get our steps. We don’t sleep; we track our REM cycles. We don’t have lunch with friends; we network. Even our watches tell us our relaxation levels are insufficient and that we need to work harder at chilling out.

Then golf slips into the middle of all that pressure and whispers, “Hey … come play for a while.”

The word play is right there. And yet, we still manage to turn the game into another performance review. We measure our drives, analyze every putt and keep such detailed statistics over 18 holes that NASA takes notice.

Children instinctively know how to simply play. Adults have a tendency to turn play into achievement. I am as guilty of this as anyone. As a PGA Professional who has spent more than 30 years teaching people how to improve their golf swings and golf games in general, I have learned that there is a fine line between learning how to play golf well and remembering how to play.

Both matter. I want to improve. I want to compete. I want to keep score and maintain a handicap. But I also want my kids to remember seeing their mom laugh on the golf course.

I want them to know that a terrible shot does not require a three-hole grieving period. And that fun can happen without anyone pulling out a phone. That laughing and competing can coexist — and that neither one necessarily ruins the other.

My daughter recently gave me perhaps the clearest lesson yet. She came to me and asked, “Mom, can you take Mary and me to play golf?”

I stared at her. “Wait. You want to play golf?”

“Yes.”

“But … you don’t like to play golf.”

Without missing a beat, she said, “I know. But I like Mary. And I would play golf with her.”

Oh. Okay, then.

For the record, I have asked this child approximately one million trillion times if she would like to play golf with me.

Her response has generally been some variation of a side-eyed “No” that only a teenage daughter can deliver. But Mary enters the picture, and suddenly the game has a whole new appeal.

Whatever.

Once my ego recovered — or at least stopped requiring medical attention — I realized that my daughter had accidentally made my entire point for me.

She wasn’t interested in golf because she had suddenly developed a burning desire to perfect her swing or hone her short game skills. She wanted to play because spending time with her friend sounded fun. The golf course was simply where the fun was going to happen.

And isn’t that how most of us fell in love with the game in the first place? We started because our dad played. Or our mom. Or our friends. Or because someone invited us, and spending an afternoon outside with people we liked sounded better than whatever responsibility we were currently avoiding.

The game gave us somewhere to be together.

My daughter reminded me that perhaps I’ve occasionally had the equation backward. As both a golf professional and a mother, I have naturally wanted my children to love the game of golf.

But maybe my job isn’t to make them love the game. Maybe it’s to give them opportunities to fall in love with everything that happens through the game — the laughter, the friendships, the competition, the conversations and the memories made walking down the fairway together between shots.

If we stop measuring every moment and allow ourselves to simply play, golf can become what it was always meant to be — not another place where we have to perform, but a place where we get to simply be together and have fun.

Even if, apparently, being together is significantly more appealing when Mary is involved.

I’m trying not to take that personally. I’m failing, but I’m trying.