At the humble golf course I call home, I recently played in a four-ball competition with a member who has found a new lease on life.
Arnold* turned 81 recently and, playing off the red tees from an eight handicap, he broke his age. As I hacked along beside him it was not hard to see how he did it.
With a backswing that finished at hip height, he whipped his club through the ball and hit a controlled draw 200m off the tee. He hardly missed a fairway when we played, and he hit most greens in regulation. He was nearest the pin on one of the par threes but missed the six-foot birdie putt. That was about all he missed.
His putting was as good as his driving. He used an old-fashioned brass-headed putter, took it back a minimal amount and then gave the ball a distinct ‘rap’, as he accelerated through the strike. He three-putted a couple of times, which was as close as he ever came to behaving like a real golfer, but he collected himself quickly on each occasion and got on with the job at hand once more.
Arnold is a member of several clubs and spends his days migrating between them, spreading good cheer wherever he goes. He is about the best advert for the game you could hope to find, a living, breathing example of how golf can give purpose to life.
That was certainly the case for the most celebrated age-shooter of all time, Ed Ervasti, who played the game well into his 100th year on earth. Ervasti was a Canadian phenomenon who, when he died aged 101 in London, Ontario, in 2015, had shot his age or better more than 3 000 times.
At the age of 77, he beat Tim McCullough in the club championship at the London Hunt Club. McCullough, who was 50 years younger than Ervasti, recalled, ‘It was matchplay and I was up by six shots after the first round, but he was so consistent. I wasn’t surprised I lost to him. He was a great player.’
Between 1998 and 1999 he played 240 rounds of golf and beat his age in 239 of them, but Ervasti’s greatest achievement was probably the 72 he shot at Sunningdale at the age of 93, a mere 21 shots better than his age.
He rarely used a cart, preferring to walk and, looking back on his life in the game, Ervasti said, ‘I reached my peak when I was about 42. I won the club championship at the club I belonged to at the time, and my handicap was about a four. Unfortunately, soon after that, I quit my job and started my business, which meant I stopped playing golf.
‘When I got back into the game, I was very enthusiastic. Back when I was playing well, I made a hole-in-one on a 236-yard par three. Today, I can’t even hit it 200 yards off the tee, but I can hit it straighter than ever. I don’t see too well any more, so if I didn’t hit it in the fairway, I wouldn’t be able to find the ball.’
RIP Ed, it was nice of you to visit our planet.
*Not his real name
– This column first appeared in the April 2023 issue of Compleat Golfer magazine.
