ESCANABA, Mich. — Few sports, if any, may test one’s patience more than golf.

An average golf swing is upward of 80 mph, and the swinging motion itself contains hundreds of variables that dictate where the ball is headed upon impact from the club. The unpredictable outcome of each stroke makes the game impossible to master. Not even the best in the world can rely on consistent perfection over 18 holes.

But the challenging nature of the sport is what fueled Escanaba resident Dennis Grall’s passion for the game — a passion that led him to each state in the country.

By 2010, Grall had already put together an impressive golf resume, golfing at nearly 250 courses, in 34 states. But at the time, he didn’t know those numbers yet.

Grall, who is the retired former sports editor of the Escanaba Daily Press, and national golf media members played together at the TimberStone Golf Course in Iron Mountain, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. After the round, one of the writers made a comment that would jump-start Grall’s desire to play golf in every state.

“One of the guys said it was the 600th course that he’s played in the world,” Grall said. “We were all impressed.”

On that weekend, Grall and his wife, Sally, drove down to Milwaukee to see their son. After Sally fell asleep, Grall had to find ways to entertain himself in order to stay awake. Thinking back to the comment made at TimberStone by that writer, he started counting the number of courses he had played at.

“I came up with 250 (courses) at that time just off the top of my head,” Grall said. “When I got done with that, I thought, ‘Jeez, how many states have I played in?’ It was 34. That’s only 16 away, why don’t I make that a goal?

“It was just a simple comment made to me, and it became a simple goal.”

Before he could golf the prestigious Whistling Straits Golf Course in Wisconsin, North Star Golf Club in Alaska, or every course in the Upper Peninsula, Grall had to learn the fundamentals of the game back behind the Iron Mountain High School.

After buying his first set of clubs for $25 from Willie Whitburn — the Daily Press’ shop foreman — fellow writer and friend Bob McGinn gave Grall swing and grip lessons, right before the Panax Open in 1974, at the Pine Grove Course. The fact that Grall was left-handed and McGinn was right-handed made the learning curve no easier for Grall.

“I didn’t kill anyone on the first day out,” Grall said. “I had fun, tortured myself, which I’ve done a lot of times since, but it was fun and I enjoyed it. I started playing more and more golf.”

Grall’s love affair with the game took him across the country, from 214 feet below sea level at Furnace Creek Golf Course in Death Valley — the lowest course in the world — to 9,600 feet high at Breckenridge Golf Course in Colorado.

He has also walked the same holes as Tiger Woods once did at the 2004 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits and played 14 other courses that have been played by professional golfers, and he teed it up on 15 of the top-rated courses according to Golf Digest.

“It was fun doing it,” Grall said about golfing in every state. (In Oregon, he golfed at Langdon Farms Golf Club in Aurora, south of Portland.) “The scenery was fantastic wherever you go. I had a chance to see scenic golf courses. I got to challenge myself at different kinds of golf courses, no matter how good they are, or how bad they are, how good I am, or how bad I am. I got to have fun challenging myself across the country.”

When it came time to decide what state would be the final one to complete Grall’s bucket list, it made sense to him that the last state would be Hawaii, since Hawaii was the last state to join the United States.

But Grall did not want to play at just any course in Hawaii. With his military background from serving in the Marines in Vietnam, he wanted to make it special. So he decided the Kaneohe Klipper Golf Course on Marine Corps Base Hawaii would be the course that would make him one of the fortunate few to have golfed in all 50 states. And on Sept. 5, 2014, Grall checked the 50th state off his list.

“I wanted to play golf at the Marine Corps Base at Hawaii, and that’s what I did,” Grall said. “It was a gorgeous course. It’s one of the top military golf courses according to Golf Digest, which really made it nice.”