Still plenty of drive

Monday morning at MeadowWood Golf Course looks pretty gray.

Not the skies, the golfers. Mondays are Over the Hill Gang days on Liberty Lake’s two 18-hole golf courses. One week, more than 100 senior men, almost all of them retirees and every one 60 or older, descend on Liberty Lake Golf Course. The next week they do the same at MeadowWood. They begin play in April and continue through September, , weather permitting.

“We used to just play Liberty Lake,” group president Clyde Wisenor explained. “When they remodeled Liberty Lake about three years ago, we moved over to MeadowWood and when they finished, the county asked us to alternate between the two courses.

“It’s worked out great. We get to play two incredible golf courses every week and we have a lot of fun doing it.”

The Over the Hill Gang is unique, not just because of the cast of characters who make up the club roster. That’s to be expected when the combined age of any given foursome exceeds two centuries, and the combined years playing the game is not far behind that number.

Founded at Liberty Lake Golf Course in 1981 by Max Gray, the group is the state’s only independent senior men’s club in the state – meaning it’s not affiliated with a corresponding men’s club. The club sets its own rules, issues its own handicaps and elects its own officers.

“Handicaps are only sanctioned up to a 36,” said Wisenor, who doubles as handicap chairman. “In this club, you get whatever handicap is. We don’t stop at 36.”

Every golfer chips in a dollar when they sign in and winners have been known to take home as much as $7 or $8 after a good round.

Wisenor is a retired captain in the Spokane Valley Fire Department and boasts a 13 handicap, the lowest in his regular foursome. That’s thanks, in part, to a rebuilt shoulder injured while fighting a fire.

“I got hurt on the job and they did surgery on it several times but it just wasn’t right,” he said of his right shoulder while showing off his unimpeded range of motion. “Finally they just went in and replaced it and it was so much better that you can’t believe it.

“It’s funny – my wife fell and injured her shoulder and the same doctor who did my surgery did the same thing for her. She was back out on the golf course three months later.”

Replaced joints, be they shoulders, knees or hips, is just one of the topics discussed in any of the 20 or so foursomes of Over the Hill members on a given Monday. There’s good natured camaraderie on display all over the course by the time Wisenor, Bob Keen and the group’s elder statesmen, Chuck Strate and Tom Walsh hit the first tee.

Strate, who retired after 40 years with the Inland Empire Division of the American Red Cross, and Walsh are both 83. Years, not strokes.

“I can’t remember – who did you work for, Tom?” Wisenor asks.

“I worked for a little old oil company nobody ever heard of,” Walsh deadpans. “It was called Exxon.”

This particular foursome was established long ago.

“We met playing couples golf together at Liberty Lake,” Wisenor said. “In fact, we still play couples together on Thursdays. We got together and we all just hit it off. It’s been fun. We all have season passes and we probably play four or five times a week.”

“I think I played about 110 or 120 rounds last year,” Strate said. “But Spokane County didn’t help us. They changed their prices and decided that Friday is now part of the weekend, so our senior discount doesn’t work.

Strate said he took up golf a bit later in life than some. He was 26 when he first picked up a putter and he’s been playing regularly since, boasting a 9 handicap for much of his adult life.

“That’s not something I could get away with back when I was with the fire department,” Wisenor joked. “I was a humble public servant.”

“Aw, crap,” the remaining three quipped.

The good-natured ribbing is part of the day.

“Did you learn anything from that,” asks Keen, a retired executive with AAA and a charter member at MeadowWood, after missing a 12-foot putt that rolled over Wisenor’s ball marker. When Wisenor misses his putt, too, Keen passes judgment. “Nope,” he says. “You didn’t learn nothin’.”

Wisenor’s tee shot on the fourth hole is interrupted by his cellphone. Once his drive lands some 150 yards down the fairway, he answers the call. It’s from a player in a foursome behind him – calling from his golf cart on the path next to the tee box.

“We’re all going to go play a course in Montana soon and he wanted to know what tee times we wanted,” Wisenor laughs.

The swings are not all pretty – and in fact the whole gang adds a new meaning to the golf phrase “having trouble getting up and down.” And on this day, club selection becomes pretty regular.

Driver off the tee, fairway wood, fairway wood, putter, is a typical progression. For variety, a wedge – sometimes sand, sometimes pitching – comes out of the bag on an as-needed basis.

“I use this one on every hole these days,” Strate says, gripping his oversized driver. “And I use my utility club a lot.”

“The way MeadowWood is laid out, you don’t use the irons that much,” Wisenor said. “You do have to use the irons more when we play Liberty Lake.”

The group always is looking for new members and interested duffers need only ask at the pro shop of either Liberty Lake course to be directed to a member or an application.

“This is a fun group,” Wisenor said, pointing to several foursomes spread around the course while making the turn toward the clubhouse on the front nine. “That foursome over there, that’s a father and son playing together – they don’t always play in the same group. But you see things like that with this group – it makes for a fun time ever week.”