IT WAS ANOTHER one of those postcard early-autumn afternoons that define the Jersey shore. And Pat Croce was feeling, well, pumped.

Not because he had just finished working out, or made one more business deal, or was about to deliver one of his patented motivational talks.

On this day, as is now almost always the case, it was him against a golf course. In this case, the venue was Greate Bay, in Somers Point, the country club he owns just across the water from one of his homes in Ocean City. It has been part of his life for 6 years. Yet until recently, it hardly consumed him. Or even came remotely close.

Who figured?

The man who once ran the Sixers all the way to the NBA Finals is walking off the second green. He's playing in a foursome with business associates/friends, in a group just ahead of the one containing Bob Clarke and Steve Coates, who have a regular game. Croce, buff as ever as birthday No. 55 beckons, is in his new element.

Sporting a hat bearing the Masters logo and a shirt from Merion, he enthusiastically introduces his partners and does some quick catching up with a minigolf bud. Then it's go-time. On the tee he meticulously goes through his preshot routine before letting one fly. Solid form. The shot finds the green 115 yards away, 15 feet left of the cup.

"So what did you hit?" someone can't help but shout. "A 7-iron?"

"Yo, bro, that was a wedge," Croce smiles back. "Not bad, right?"

Not at all. Especially for someone who couldn't tell his hybrid from a driver not that long ago.

Up on the green, you can tell Croce can't wait until it's his turn. Finally, it is. He puts a pretty smooth stroke on the ball, but the putt somehow misses anyway. He grimaces. "I really wanted a bird," he allows. "But nothing wrong with par."

Indeed. And he's off, to pursue his latest fix for the next 3 hours or so. Yo, bro.

Pat Croce the golfer? For the longest time, you had a better chance of getting him to sprout some middle-aged paunch.

"I don't like doing something I'm not good at," Croce said. "My ball would go in a different ZIP code, and it bothered me that these fat, out-of-shape guys could just crack it out there. Here I am, training every morning, and I can't do squat. That's frustrating.

"About 20 years ago, when I joined the [Philadelphia] Country Club, it took me like 3 years to get in, I was running a celebrity tournament. We had Julius, Mike Schmidt, Clarkie, Charles. Everyone who was anyone. It was one of those better-ball things, so I just tried to get it off the tee. It wasn't like martial arts, which I've been doing since I was 18. Even my best ones would fly east and west, never north.

"Mark [Benevento, the right-hand man who runs Greate Bay with him] always said, 'Pat, if you commit the focus [the way] you did to martial arts, you'd excel at this sport.' I always thought of those words."

A little more than a year ago, he took the plunge. Or at least dipped his toes.

"I went out one day with my son, Michael, who's a 7-handicap," Croce said. "He'd been bugging me through the years. We walked nine holes. It was gorgeous. I'd go for the exercise. I hit some shots every now and then. I didn't even have clubs. We went back, maybe another day, for another nine holes. Then maybe the next week. Then I started taking lessons from the pro. I learned how to take a divot. My goal was to break 100."

Now, too much is never enough. His handicap has gone from 34 to 14. He wants to get to zero.

"I've totally invested myself," Croce said. "At some point it's, '[Bleep], I can do this.' Instead of a fourth-degree black belt, I could already be scratch. Which would be more relevant to my lifestyle now. I don't get to fight too much.

"It really has opened up a whole different world. It takes the locker room and moves it outside. People I've known, the bonds are even stronger. I got to play with [Comcast chairman and CEO] Brian Roberts. I'd never done that before. You can't spar with those guys. You'd like to but you can't. I know I'm going to win that one.

"I almost quit. Now it's scary. I want everything about the challenge. I'm like a born-again. It's my mind I'm trying to beat up. Where the hell has it been all my life? I should smack my son for not exposing it to me earlier. He's the happiest bugger there is, that I'm involved.

"I went at it like I do anything else I've ever done, whether it was chess or motorcyle riding or helicopter flying," he went on. "I have to get to that next level. I'm a big believer that the secret of success is to have a strategy, know what to work on. So I keep track of everything. Golf's a microcosm of life. That's what I'm realizing. It's what intrigues me more.

"I want to beat Mark [who's a 7]. I want to beat his [teenage] son, that little SOB. He's damn good."

Benevento, whose relationship with Croce goes way back, sounds sincerely shocked by all this.

Did we mention that Pat actually cracked a rib on his left side from hitting the ground too hard?

"He always said he didn't have the time, didn't have the desire," Benevento said. "Now he's having so much fun with it. He's immersed himself. I really think the tipping point was getting to spend some quality time with his son. But you don't go from a 34 to a 14 like that. It doesn't happen. That's Pat Croce.

"I just see his life changing. You learn a lot about a person on the golf course, and a lot about yourself. He spent 3 straight days with our pro, Bucky Kenneff. Called it Camp Croce. Worked with him from 9 'til noon. Then we'd go play 18 after lunch.

"It's changed our relationship. I've never seen more of him.

"[Recently] we played a match at Philly Country Club with one of my buddies from down here and one of Pat's friends. It comes down to the 18th hole, which is to the right of the clubhouse. There's a huge wedding going on, and people started to notice who he is, the buzz is going around, cameras start clicking. We win, so there's Pat and his guy paying off by doing pushups in front of all these people. It was something."

Croce already has been to Scotland, where he played (among others) St. Andrews, Muirfield, Carnoustie and Prestwick. He's also done Pine Valley, Augusta National and Merion. Being him has perks. He hasn't made it to the Monterey Peninsula yet, but it's high on the list. The possibilities have no boundries.

Imagine that.

"I left enough skull-and-crossbone balls over there [in Scotland], they're going to think Pirates raided them," Croce said. "I lived in whatever they call that stuff. Gorse, or heather. I had a great game, my best game, at Muirfield. The wind, and the ambiance. At Carnoustie, I hit that snake of a canal like every other hole."

Uh, the natives refer to it as the Burn.

"Well, it burned me," he noted.

Maybe so, but there's always the next time.

"That's what's good about it," Croce said. "You have to put the bad shots and the bad holes behind you. The ball's not coming at you. It's just sitting there. Being an athlete, you don't like to be embarrassed. You're 100 yards away, how can I not get it there? That's what's cool about it. Anyone can do it."

Even someone who drove to Chester Valley Country Club when he was a sophomore at West Chester University - to shine shoes.

"I knew nothing [about golf]," Croce recalled. "And I didn't care. I did it for the money. Then I'd leave. To me, it was just a job."

It has become quite an adventure. *