PAUL SLIVA, the ponytailed pro at Van Cortlandt Golf Course in the Bronx

PAUL SLIVA, the ponytailed pro at Van Cortlandt Golf Course in the Bronx

Mr. Sliva was waiting for his egg sandwich and glancing up at “The “Jerry Springer Show” on the television, where two women began cursing and swinging at each other. “Stripper fight!” Mr. Sliva announced as the woman behind the bar, who Woods Hit A Nice Shot In Masters had tattooed flames blazing out of her cleavage, made him that egg sandwich at the grill. A few others lingered at the bar — which had a plastic Bud pitcher for tips — at this municipal course just off the Major Deegan Expressway. Mr. Sliva’s next student arrived, a contractor from Yonkers, and they took a golf cart out to his regular teaching spot, in the left rough of the 15th hole. The route took them under the Deegan and the Mosholu Parkway. The underpasses were scrawled with graffiti, and even on the course there was the constant background thrum of traffic, and a steady stream of cars and trucks was visible.

“This is urban golf — at times, you forget you’re in the city, but it’s all around you,” Mr. Sliva, 48, said in his gravelly New York accent as he stopped next to a muddy pond and plopped down a bucket of balls for his contractor pupil, Tom Tuffy, 45, to hit.