Underage golfer

At 89, Sun City Center's Bill Baker is on a roll: He has a streak of 219 rounds lower than his age.

By BOB HARIG

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 27, 2000

[Times photo: Fraser Hale] Bill Baker got his start in golf as a caddie at Yountakah Country Club in Nutley, N.J. "Forty cents a round," he said, "Plus a dime tip."

SUN CITY CENTER -- The mandate is simple: play golf, every day. Oh, and shoot a score that is lower than your age.

That is Bill Baker's goal each morning when he awakens just down the street from Caloosa Golf & Country Club. With health and good weather obliging, Baker will hop in his customized golf cart -- with golf gloves strung across the back on a clothesline -- and head to the course.

By late morning, he will be on the putting green or hitting a few practice balls. Others will arrive and give him some good-natured ribbing about being "older than the dirt," shaking their heads in amazement all the while.

Then, in all probability, Baker will once again shoot a score that is lower than 89, his age.

In fact, you have to go back more than two years before Baker discovers a round that didn't meet his lofty standards, a streak of 219 rounds lower than his age.

They say golf is the game of a lifetime, and Baker is proof. He started playing in 1920 at age 10.

"I keep active by being in golf," said Baker, who has an 8-handicap at his home course. "It if wasn't for golf, I wouldn't being doing anything. I'd be sitting in a chair. I'd be one of these couch potatoes. Get up to get something to eat, sit down and watch TV.

"Instead of that, I get over here, get with the fellas, play golf. It keeps me active."

Very active. Baker, who will turn 90 in November, rarely misses a day of golf. And even after his usual early afternoon game, he might return to the course to chip and putt or play in a mini-skins game.

All of which helps explain why Baker is still so good.

He has turned breaking his age into a feat akin to making a 2-foot putt: Occasionally, he lips one out, but he is nearly automatic.

[Times photo: Fraser Hale] Baker's hands sweat a lot, so he wears liners beneath his leather glove. Here, a string of liners dries on his golf cart.

The other day, playing with friends Bob Conaway and Don Pratt, Baker shot 84 -- "terrible," he groaned. It was his 70th consecutive score under his age this year. Baker began the process of recording his scores at the urging of a friend. "He said, "You ever think of keeping track of the scores when you shoot your age? You ought to have a pretty good record.' So I did," Baker said. "I started in 1988."

And the numbers are remarkable. Since the time he was 77, Baker has 1,774 rounds in which he has broken his age. He has missed just 91 times. "And a couple of those times, I probably shouldn't have been on the golf course," he said.

"I can't remember not wanting to play. Even if I'm sick, I still want to go out. The doctor says you can't go out, then I just have to sit around. When I can't get on the golf course ... the other day, I came back after I went home to practice a little more. Let's say I get a little edgy. I've been that way all my life."

Conaway, 65, has been playing golf with Baker since 1992, when Baker was routinely breaking his age at 82.

"I don't think of him as being anywhere near the age he is," Conaway said. "He's just one of the guys. It's only when you start thinking about what he has done that you start comparing your age to his. Physically, it's amazing. He's in great shape. And for 89 years old, he's right out there."

Baker got his start in golf as a caddie at Yountakah Country Club in Nutley, N.J. "Forty cents a round," he said. "Plus a dime tip."

The golf pro made clubs for the caddies at a cost of $3. Baker got his first club, a 3-iron. "I was lucky to get three bucks together," he said. "I used to play in the caddie pen. It had a fence around it, and we'd put holes in the ground, chip and putt to them. I'd use that 3-iron all the time. I learned how to adjust to hit different shots with that one club."

And he managed to hone his game on the course, too.

"I used to sneak out. I'd look through the hedge and jump onto the fourth hole," Baker said. "All of a sudden one day, the guys scattered. I just stayed there and laid down the flagstick. I told him (the greenskeeper), "The only way I can do this is if I sneak out here.' He said from now on, play down (Nos.) 8, 9 and 10. ... If the members come along, duck into the woods. They'll never see you.' So I figured I had permission from him."

As Baker got older, he got better, getting his handicap down to 3. Throughout his working life, he managed to find plenty of time for golf.

In fact, the job he held at Hoffmann LaRoche was perfect for a golfer. Baker was the night supervisor at the pharmaceutical company. His shifted started at 11 p.m. and ended at 7 a.m.

"They told me when I took the job, "Don't come around in 3 to 6 months and ask for the second or first shift.' I said, "Please, I like what I'm getting.' I could play golf in the daytime. It didn't bother me at all. I loved it."

Baker, whose second wife died two years ago, retired to Sun City Center in 1977, not long after he shot his age for the first time at 67. He did it at Passaic County Golf Course in Totawa, N.J.

Soon he was setting all kinds of records at Caloosa. He holds the course record of 66 from the white tees and 67 from the blue tees. At age 82, he was Caloosa's oldest club champion.

Over the years, he has done just about everything at the club. He has recorded five holes-in-one (18 overall) and has eagled each hole on the course but the par-3 seventh. ("I've lipped out, hit the stick, but never got one to go in," he said.) That gives him a ringer score (lowest ever shot on each hole) of 37.

In July, Baker had a mild heart attack. "It wasn't major. The doctor told me he'd give me two pills and they wouldn't have to open me up," Baker said. It was serious enough, however, to keep Baker off the golf course for three months. That's why he squeezed in just 140 rounds last year.

None of his scores was higher than his age.

Baker has a couple of mottoes he tries to follow. "You can't hit the ball if you don't relax," and "I try to make myself keep my head down ... which I can't do anymore. I can't make myself do it. I've forgotten how to do it."

The way Baker plays golf, he is not getting much sympathy.

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