For Old Pros, It’s All Play And No Work

If you’re wondering what happens to old golf pros once they retire, the answer is simple.

They keep golfing.

In most cases, a lot more than when they worked at area golf courses.

A sampling of interviews with some of these retirees shows that strength and flexibility may diminish with age, but the desire to play most assuredly does not.

“I know I play a lot more than I used to,” said Gene Carbery, head pro at Spokane Country Club from 1963 to 1990. “I will play three to five times a week. When I was a working pro, I didn’t play very much more than once a week.”

Interest in former club pros remains high in some circles. “There’s almost not a day that goes by that somebody doesn’t come up to me and ask how Bill Welch is doing,” Indian Canyon pro Gary Lindeblad said.

So, here’s an update on how a handful of these veterans are doing.

Welch, pro at Indian Canyon from 1966 to 1983, said he’s played only about 15 times this year. “I spend a lot of time hiking on Mount Rainier,” he said. “I’ve got a pacemaker and I’ve had a bypass, but that pacemaker works just dandy.”

Welch, 81, shot his age several weeks ago.

He played on the University of Texas golf team coached by famed instructor Harvey Penick.

“Harvey was about 35 when I was there and I thought he had one foot in the grave then,” Welch said. “But he went on to live to 90-something.”

Welch won the 1941 national public links championship played at Indian Canyon, a course he would come back to run for 17 years.

“The one thing that I really remember is how proud I was to be the pro at Indian Canyon,” Welch said. “I always said, when you’re pro there, you realize that that’s not just any place.”

Jim Shriver preceded Welch at Indian Canyon and then took over Manito Country Club from 1965 to 1981.

At 76, Shriver carries a 5 handicap at the club.

“I shoot my age every now and then,” said Shriver, who won two Spokane and two Seattle city titles, and at age 68 won the 1987 Pacific Northwest Golf Association Senior title - shooting his age in one of the rounds.

Shriver said he can’t get as much distance off the tee these days, but he still works on his short game “for an hour or two as many as four days a week.”

Carbery, who carries a 10 handicap at age 67, remembers the highlight of his career at Spokane CC being the round in 1975 when he joined Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller and Rod Funseth in an exhibition.

Long-time Downriver pro Joe Durgan recently suffered a mild stroke, according to his son, John.

“It affected his left side a bit and he’s lost some of his strength, but it didn’t have any effect on his speech or memory,” John Durgan said.

So what does the 76-year-old pro do as physical therapy? “He goes out and does some putting,” John said. “The physical therapists have encouraged that.”

Sano Haldi, pro at Shoshone Golf and Tennis Club, said he sees former Silver Valley pro Babe Streeter on the course nearly every day.

“He’s 81 and shoots his age on a regular basis and just had his seventh hole-in-one this year,” Haldi said. “I don’t recall him missing more than a day or so in a row at the course in more than 20 years.”

Folks at Hayden Lake Country Club, likewise, said Bud Hofmeister continues to play regularly.

Hofmeister, 81, won the Northwest Open in 1967 at age 52 and went on to become the mayor of Hayden Lake.

Practice facility to open

Birdies, the new North Side golf practice facility, will open Friday. The layout features 60 matted stations, with 22 covered and heated to allow practice during the winter.

The putting and chipping greens will not open until next spring, allowing them to mature.

For the brave, Birdies (behind Northpointe Plaza) will offer a “Jumbo” bucket of balls (180) for $12.

, DataTimes