Their handicap may not be what it once was, but Ellen Horton and Maureen Burns are delighted to still play golf after so many years.
“We’re just happy to be out there, looking down at the grass, not up,” quips Burns.
Both ladies are 81 and members of the Blue Mountain Golf and Country Club where they play and compete regularly. And they’re in good company.
The local golf club reports there are 63 women over the age of 80 who continue to play the game there. Dubbed the Eagle Group, many have been golfing for more than 40 years.
There are also seven members in their 90s, adds the club’s membership and facility services manager Jim Malley.
“It’s a relatively forgiving golf course, so they have an enjoyable golf experience every time they go out,” he says, adding that the ninth hole brings golfers who want to play a short game back to the clubhouse.
Having so many active seniors still out hitting the ball is reflective of an active club, he says. During one year it boasts 30,000 T-offs. The 60-year-old club, the area’s oldest, has 675 members and 77 people on the waiting list.
For Horton and Burns it’s about a lot of fun and even some competition. Both have notched tournament and club wins over the years. And the two also regularly compete on the provincial and national circuit.
That their handicap has dropped doesn’t much matter. At the height of her game, Burns played with an eight handicap, it’s recently ballooned but she’s confident she’ll be able to bring it down. Horton once had a handicap of six, but now hits 16.
Despite some slowdowns – Horton sports a set of replacement hips as well as a knee and Burns has osteoarthritis – they persevere.
Both are retired teachers and have been playing the sport since their teenage years and have always been committed to physical activity. So they recognize the importance sports and regular movement plays in retirement years.
But there’s the social aspect, too, that Horton calls “the friendships of girls with golf.”
The two have been part of a foursome of ladies the same age who would regularly play in tournaments. They still have friendly competitions among themselves, and that may well include playing through cold and rainy days during tournaments.
They’ve also mentored other women over the years and encourage others to participate in the tournaments.
Burns and Horton both hail from Toronto, coming to the area about two decades ago to retire. Both have continued playing the game in Florida during the winter.
Burns, a grandmother of seven, has deep Collingwood roots dating back to 1903. She recalls working for her dad during the summers and then going to the golf course where he would teach her the game. Her mother and father were both accomplished golfers, winning club championships and Burns soon followed in their golf steps.
In fact, when recently reviewing the biography of her dad, Charles Connolly, a Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame inductee, she read that he’d won 25 club championships. Burns discovered she has outdistanced him with 30.
“What I really like about it was I was able to carry on through my life and playing golf, playing good golf,” she says.
Horton has got into the habit of walking nine holes on a course and riding in a cart the other nine hours for an 18-hole game. That way she has enough energy to play pickleball or bridge later in the day as well.
With its limited hills and good condition, the course, says Malley, is a great for walking. There is also a variety of programs members can become involved in, adding to the social aspect.
“It’s the one thing you can keep doing until you drop dead,” Horton declares. “The wonderful thing about golf is my friends are getting younger and younger.”
