Planet Golf — 05 April 2018 by GW staff and news services
Through sleet, snow…they thrive

By Allen Schauffler

REDMOND, Or. — Walking to the 14th green, we see our first other golfers of the morning. For the last hour and a half we’ve been alone on the course. Just the way this dawn-patrol group wants it.

“It’s like it’s our own private golf course” says Phyllis Wampler. “These others, the ‘fair-weather’ golfers, they don’t know what they’re missing.”

The weather is hardly fair. It’s cold out here. A brisk morning wind blowing off the eastern flank of the Cascades makes a joke of the thermometer, which reads 35 degrees. The sun is out there somewhere on the Eastern horizon but it’s not doing much. Welcome to winter in the High Desert. The grass is browned-out and dormant, the landscape frozen hard. The first challenge is just sticking a tee in the ground.

Nasty conditions or not, it’s a perfect day for golf according to “The Gang” teeing it up at The Greens at Redmond. They are not the type to put their clubs away in October and bring them out again in March; a little February chill isn’t going to freeze this group out of their regular game. If the course is open, they’re first on the tee and ready to roll. Any day. Every day..

“We’ve seen 12, 14 degrees, snow and wind blowing, we don’t care” says Alan Williams.

“Just put on another layer of clothes and play” adds Phyllis with a shrug.

Phyllis and Alan play seven days a week when weather and real-life allow; 28 rounds in November, 17 in December, another 28 in January. Harvey Rutter comes all the way up from Bend to  join in at least three times a week, often more. Harvey Smith is a reliable Monday-Wednesday-Friday guy.

Phyllis is 85. Smith, a quiet presence on the course, still has a smooth, full, Snead-like swing at 95 years old. Harvey Rutter, the lefty, turns 80 this month. Their regular partner Raymond Cunningham (missing on this day due to injury) is a mere 81.

Alan Williams, father of six, grandfather of 13, great-grandfather of two (“with another on the way”) is the baby of the group at just 68.

Age? Weather? Phhhhft.. This group couldn’t care less about either one and frankly think they you’re a little daft if YOU do. They’re here to play the game they love, the game that brings them together and has been a permanent thread in the fabric of their lives for the last decade or so.

All bundled up, the foursome plays in all kinds of weather at The Greens at Redmond.

They’re already planning to play and celebrate Harvey’s hundredth birthday, five years from now.

Alan loves the exercise of walking the course; it helps him handle his diabetes.

When Phyllis Wampler’s husband died a few years ago, she was back on the course in a matter of weeks and figures the group and the game pulled her through.

“I don’t know what I would have done without it”.

Make no mistake, these folks can play. On the short par-4 11th, Phyllis splits the fairway and I pace her drive off at 166 yards. Harvey Smith (remember, he’s 95) is in the left rough, 220 off the tee. Phyllis drops a 12 footer for birdie. Harvey’s short-game is the rock-solid short-game all of us hackers crave; he  gets up and down from the fringe for a routine par. In this group he’s a relative newcomer to the game. When did he first tee it up?

“Started playing about fifty years ago, I guess” he muses.

The Greens at Redmond is a par 58 executive course, mostly par threes with some short fours thrown in. It’s short, yes, but small greens and subtle slopes give it some teeth.

There’s no traditional score keeping for this bunch. Nobody carries a formal handicap, nobody posts a score, nobody really gives a damn about a final number. They do keep track of pars and birdies, though. Bogeys?

“At my age they don’t seem to matter much anymore.” says Phyllis with a wisp of a smile.

And aces, they keep track of those, too, and have more than 25 holes-in-one between them, lifetime.

Harvey Rutter remembers every one, including his first.

“Third hole at Colonial Valley, December 10, 1979.”

“What time of day was that, Harvey?”

“What did you have for lunch?”

The hazards can kill you.

The friendly kidding goes on with almost every shot and the shots come fast. Hit it, find it, hit it; leave the practice swings at the driving range. There’s no plum-bobbing, ball-marking or agonizing club-selection debate with this group. Who’s away? Whoever’s ready to putt..

David Holmes, The Greens GM calls them “The Dew-Sweepers”.

They usually play as a five-some, normally a recipe for slow play and frustration on any course. But not in this case.

“Nobody ever catches them. Ever. They move right along. Rain, snow or shine.”

When I gather them on the 8th green to pose for pictures Alan says “This is the longest we’ve stood still in the last ten years”

He nails 15 pars out of 18 holes on the day I walk the course with “The Gang”.

“He’s a real golfer” Phyllis tells me as the round comes to a close, “The rest of us, we just used to be.”

She’s been golfing since she was 23 and can’t imagine life without the game. And she knows every round, every swing, every wind-whipped winter morning on the course is a great lesson for a “youngster” like Alan.

“We’re showing him the future, showing him what it’s going to be like.”

For this group golf has an importance far beyond the scorecard. It’s about camaraderie, exercise, getting up and getting out, redefining “old-age” by swinging down and through the late years of life. When the ground is too frozen to stick a tee in it, you stick it in anyway and swing away. When others think it’s too cold to hit the links, you go play your regular 18.

When the man in the pro-shop says it’s OK to play, you play. Period.

“I just hope I can get there” Alan tells me on a tee-to-green walk, marveling at the group’s longevity and tenacity, “I take inspiration from these people..”

Inspiration you’ll find almost every day on The Greens at Redmond.

“We’re sort of a screwy group” says Phyllis Wampler, “We just love to play.”

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