Waterford – At some point last weekend, 48 golfers at Great Neck Country Club realized the following:

They were lucky to be in that place at that time and smart enough to know they ought to enjoy it.

Because this doesn’t happen anywhere else.

Indeed, the 12th annual “Players Cup,” Great Neck’s version of the Ryder Cup, gets better with each rendition. This year, under azure blue August skies, four teams of 12 did the golf thing with each other, against each other, for each other and by each other, creating levels of camaraderie and comedy that make it feel as though around here, there’s Great Neck … and then there’s everywhere else.

“God, this is fun,” golfer and club member Matt Barnes wondered aloud to nobody in particular during match play on Sunday, the culmination of the three-day event that was as much about bragging rights as it was honoring your teammates with your best effort.

Straight up: This was a Jim O’Neill Production. O’Neill, with a deep local sports background as a preeminent baseball coach and athletic director, loves golf the way Ricky loved Lucy. His countless hours of effort — he’s part fussbudget, part genius — has turned this into a circle-your-calendar event. The gang of 48, who may be awash in festering rivalries, moral judgments and occasional impatience throughout the year, all bow at the altar of O’Neill, whose attention to detail would make most accountants take notes.

O’Neill organizes the event many months earlier, amassing booklets on each player, complete with biographies and tournament history. There’s an actual draft night, during which all 48 players are selected to teams, with a wink and a nod to the NFL: “With the first pick in the 2017 Players Cup Draft …”

Moreover, each player’s selection comes with a slide show and accompanying music O’Neill selects and inputs. Painstakingly. The music may reflect the player’s golf game, personality or may go straight for needling.

He collects entry fees, pays bills, organizes the golf (scramble, four-ball, match play), putting contest, long drive contest, poker tournament and pin placement. Ah, pin placement. O’Neill confessed he could hear a few, “that bleeping O’Neill!” musings throughout the weekend, mostly because some of the pins provided angst.

“I’ve been involved in golf for many years,” assistant pro Gary Deep was saying Sunday, just before match play, “and I’ve never seen anything or been a part of anything like this. Jimmy could be a tournament director anywhere. What he does is unbelievable. Every guy here says the same thing.”

O’Neill: “I like doing it. My wife (Dorian) thinks I’m obsessive about it … and she’s right. But I love the looks on the guys’ faces when I see they’re enjoying it so much.”

And they did. It was three days of joyful stress. Joyful: Playing golf with your friends. Stress: Not wanting to let them down. Funny thing your realize: You can walk up 18 with thousands of people watching and feel less pressure (you don’t know them personally) than by walking up 18 with nobody watching … and knowing your buddies need you.

I got to see the weekend from the inside. I happened to be out with Barnes one night this summer. He said matter-of-factly, “you should come to the draft tomorrow night.”

“Draft?”

He explained the concept of the Players Cup.

I was in.

I caddied for Barnes on Sunday. A fun time for many reasons, most notably that Barnes’ puckish sense of humor is like his American Express Card: He never leaves home without it.

My job was to clean clubs and golf balls, bring the requested clubs to the requested areas, cheerlead and occasionally play psychoanalyst. Barnes, however, seemed most happy with his caddie when he walked to the green and handed him his putter and a Miller Lite at the same time.

The foursome: Marco Frausini, Bill Mayo, Austin Free and Barnes. Mayo was particularly enjoyable, especially when he’d begin referring to himself in the third person after a bad putt.

“Oh, Bill. C’mon, Bill! Why Bill? Why?” he said more times than he would have liked, a sentiment every golfer can understand.

Mayo, in trying to determine whose ball was away at one point, actually mouthed the words, “I can’t tell. It’s a perfect isosceles triangle.”

Now come on. What other sporting event can evoke a geometry lesson, too?

It was almost the perfect weekend. Until Sunday when cart girl (and former Waterford High volleyball player) Mickayla Shelburn told the participants she (and the whole place) was out of Coors Light. Talk about disgruntled. Grown men nearly reduced to tears. So let that be a commandment for next year: Thou Shalt Not Run Out Of Coors Light.

Anyhoo, other country clubs and golf courses around here should adopt this concept. Three days of utter joy, countless laughs, budding friendships and esprit de corps that was to be envied.

A massive enterprise and enduring success, even without Coors Light.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro