Everyone knows that Roy Williams’ favorite off-season past time is golf, chasing that little white ball around his favorite courses all over the country and the world. Williams keeps a list of the top 100 golf courses in America and at last count ol’ Roy had played about 65 of them.

While he is never a phone call or thought away from his basketball team and the latest recruiting target, Williams strategically schedules his golf games from April to October in basically three categories: regular matches with his closest cronies wherever and whenever they can tee it up; carefully planned trips for his so-called Foxhole Gang of long-time friends (sometimes they even bring their wives!) and a few of the hundreds of charity events he is invited to play in.

In the last month, after completing his 2011 high school recruiting class and learning happily that Harrison Barnes, John Henson and Tyler Zeller will return for the 2012 season, Williams has been executing all three of his golfing missions. He will occasionally meet three of his local buddies early in the morning at the Chapel Hill Country Club and, riding carts quickly between shots, try to complete a competitive match in record time. His goal is to always be at his office three and a half hour after they tee off (which if you don’t play golf is considered a very fast round).

In the last month, Williams went on a “boys’ golf trip” to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico and a “wives’ trip” to Palm Springs, California. This weekend he is headed back to Kansas, where most of the hard feelings from his emotional departure in 2003 have subsided. He will participate in a Skins Game at the grand opening of the Firekeeper Golf Course at the Fire Brand Casino and Resort outside of Topeka. It is to support the Notah Begay III Foundation, which benefits Native Americans all over the country. Begay, the professional golfer who was Tiger Woods’ roommate at Stanford, designed the Firekeeper course and will play in the Skins Game with Williams, head pro Randy Towner and current Kansas Coach Bill Self, who is a 12 handicap compared to Williams’ 10.

“Trust me, he is a better golfer than me. When I played with him before, he was (better),” said Self, who recalls playing two rounds with Williams when Self worked at Oral Roberts and Williams was at KU.

“It’s a nine-hole Skins match with two pros, one really good player and one hack,” added Self, referring to himself as the hack. “I’ll definitely be the weak link in that group. It should be a lot of fun playing with those three. Of course, Roy will add so much to it. Everybody respects the job he did at KU.”

Self succeeded Williams at Kansas and has had the Jayhawks highly ranked in the last eight years, including the 2008 club that hammered the Tar Heels in the Final Four semis in San Antonio and won the national championship two nights later over John Calipari’s Memphis team. (Williams, lest we forget, has won two NCAA titles since coming home to Carolina).

The following week, Williams is scheduled to be paired with Calipari, who has since moved to Kentucky and has played UNC three times already. Kentucky won in Lexington in 2010 and the Tar Heels returned the favor in Chapel Hill this past December. Then, of course, the Wildcats won the rubber match in the 2011 Elite Eight game in Newark for a trip to the Final Four.

Self and Calipari are the last two coaches to take Williams’ teams out of the NCAA Tournament. The Tar Heels will face the coach and team they beat in between – Tom Izzo and Michigan State for the 2009 national championship – in the first annual (aircraft) Carrier Classic in San Diego on Veterans Day.

So far, no golf game is scheduled with Izzo this summer.

Any suggestions for golf or basketball tips Roy should offer Self and Calipari?