WATERTOWN — Nonagenarian Peter Salmon doesn’t want to play Geriatric Golf.
Salmon says he has no interest in playing a game that allows for rule changes to accommodate senior golfers to continue to play.
“Golf is golf,” he said, adamantly.
At age 93, Salmon is the oldest golfer in this summer’s senior men’s golf league at the Thompson Park Golf Course.
During the Monday afternoon league, eight two-men teams play against each other to keep their love of golf going in their twilight years.
Each week, they play nine holes on the historic 18-hole course, switching back and forth to play on the front and back nine holes. This year’s league began two weeks ago and runs until August 18 when the playoffs kick off.
It’s prolonging Salmon’s decades-long love for the game that he’s played since he was 15 years old. Salmon, a retired banker who moved to Watertown in 1970, is able to enjoy playing and getting out there with friends that he’s known for many years.
“I can still get around,” Salmon said.
He may not be able to hit the ball as long as he once did or can no longer maneuver easily around the course. When he’s off the course, Salmon has to use a walker. Besides his Mondays at the golf course, Salmon is a fixture at Samaritan Summit Village, where he visits his wife Shirley every day.
While out on the greens, he rides on a golf cart and gets as close as possible to the ball that he just hit. He also gets a lot of help from caddy Liam Van Buren, a family friend who was hired by Salmon’s children to make sure that Salmon is taken care of on the golf course.
“I help out any way I can,” said VanBuren, who started playing golf about four years ago.
Joining because that’s where his friends’ played, Salmon has been a member of the golf course in the city-owned park for as long as he can remember.
It’s where a few still play, including his oldest friend, former Watertown Mayor Joe Butler Sr., to join him in the senior league.
“It keeps them young,” said golf course general manager Jordan Northrop.
In existence for decades, this year’s senior league consists of eight two-men teams — all of its members age 60 and above.
And many of them have golfed at Thompson Park for many, many years.
They genuinely care about the golf course and compliment him about its condition under the city’s guidance, Northrop said.
Bill Barden is about to turn 90 and Butler, friends since their sons were in their diapers, is 88 years old and has been involved with the golf course for decades, once as a former owner for then what was the Watertown Golf Club.
After all of these decades, Salmon still looks at the game the same way he did when he was a young man. It teaches patience, he said.
Golf can be a frustrating game — after walking away from finishing a tough round or even from one hole to the next or from shot to shot.
“You don’t master golf,” he said. “Golf masters you.”
And at his advance age, Salmon, acknowledging that the golf course is where he has the most fun, says he still “swings for the fences” and “putts for dough.”
A couple of weeks ago, his son Peter and daughter Christy came to town during separate visits. Getting interested in the sport from their father, they played a few rounds with him at his home course.
“It just gives us something to do with him that he loves,” his son said. “It’s a lot of fun.”
They are in complete support of their father continuing his golf interest. It keeps him active and around other guys his age, they said.
The sport has a growing number of seniors playing golf across the country. And research has shown that playing golf helps people to live longer.
According to the National Golf Foundation, the number of senior golfers nationally stands at 5.9 million last year, up 27% from five years ago.
A 2020 study has found that elderly golfers live longer lives, concluding that the exercise that they get from walking, boosts in balance and agility, strength and even cognitive process, improves their health.
“I get in shape for golf and golf keeps me in shape,” he said.
Salmon recalled how his uncle, Theron Stinchfield, a school superintendent in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, got him interested in golf when he was a teen. He admired his uncle and the young Salmon found that he “could hit the ball.”
On a pleasant summer afternoon on Monday, Salmon showed that he still can hit the ball during a match against Butler and Kelly Campbell.
For the past six years or so, his partner has been Merle Tousant, 78, who also has a yearning for the sport.
“He must have been a good golfer when he was young,” Tousant said.
The foursome are friends and have a good time playing. While they still have some competitive spirit, it was a day of camaraderie and fun. They encouraged each other to hit a good shot and congratulated them when one did.
There was not a curse word during the entire outing.
“It gets us out of the house,” said Campbell, 76, who’s played in the senior league for years and picked up the game back in the 1950s.
On this Monday, it took them just about three hours to get through the nine holes. During the day, he repeated his golf motto several times — move the ball forward.
On a par 3 hole, Van Buren handed him a wedge and Salmon hit the ball about 80 yards to get on the green on his second shot.
“Beautiful, Peter,” Butler said.
“I can still play at it,” Salmon responded.
He subsequently two putted the hole for a four.
On the next hole, Salmon did not hit a shot particularly well.
“Terrible, terrible, terrible,” he remarked.
But that’s the game of golf. He’ll be back at it this Monday.
“If I live to be 100, I’ll play when I’m 100,” he said.
Read the full article here