This 98-year-old Columbia-area man plays golf 3 times a week and has a game to envy
Most golfers look forward to the day that their score is lower than their age, and they cherish the accomplishment.
Charles Shealy provides the exception. Any round with a higher score than his age is a disappointment.
Indeed, Shealy might be the most remarkable golfer in South Carolina — or, for that matter, the most remarkable anywhere. He is a golfing treasure.
He is 98 years old, generally plays golf three times a week and has “beaten his age” on the scorecard too many times to count.
Ever the competitor, the 89 he posted the other day on his home course, Mid-Carolina Club in Prosperity, left him looking for better. “I couldn’t make a putt,” Shealy said, repeating every golfer’s lament.
Golfers of any age would like his game, said David Herndon, another member of Mid-Carolina’s thriving senior program.
“Straight down the middle and long for his age,” said Herndon, a retired tire dealer. “He’s not off the fairway very often.”
Stan Shealy (no relation), the starter at Mid-Carolina, echoed the thought, noting, “I’ve watched him tee off on No. 1 so many times and he’s always down the middle. And he won’t move up (to the club’s shorter magenta tees). He still plays the reds (at more than 5,000 yards).”
Rohan Allwood, Mid-Carolina’s head professional, joined the chorus of admirers, saying: “A lot of golfers at any age would like to have his game. To do what he has done as well as he has done as long as he had done at his age is extraordinary.”
Charles Shealy grew up in the Batesburg-Leesville area, served in the Army-Air Force in World War II — tail gunner on a B-25. “I flew one mission off Okinawa to Japan and the war ended the next day,” he said. “I spent the rest of the time in the (Army of) Occupation.”
He got into electronics and the furniture businesses after the military service, moved to West Columbia in 1948 and still lives in the same house on Evergreen Avenue.
He got his start in golf almost by accident. His son’s college roommate wanted to sell his clubs, and Shealy bought the set in the late 1950s for $75.
He remembers his first round came at old Pine Forest Golf Club off Caughman Road, which is now a housing development. He played at other area courses before joining Mid-Carolina in 1973.
“I paid a $400 initiation fee and $35 a month dues,” he said. “We didn’t have tee times back then; you put your ball in a slot and got to play when yours came up.”
Memories? Of course. He’s made four holes-in-one, the last just the other day on Mid-Carolina’s seventh about 110 yards over water. And he eagled No. 9 not long ago with an iron from the fairway that found the hole on the par-5.
“My favorite is the hole-in-one at the Springdale course in North Carolina,” he said. “I was playing with my son, my grandson and son-in-law, and they all saw it. Having them there for that shot is something I’ll always remember.”
If he’s not on the golf course — he usually makes the trek up Interstate 26 to Mid-Carolina every Monday, Wednesday and Friday — he’s working in his yard. “My doctor told me, ‘Don’t be a couch potato,’ and that keeps me busy,” Shealy said. “Besides, my wife (Sylvia) won’t let me sit.”
The celebration of his 97th birthday created one of those forever moments. A jokester in the family arranged for a fire truck to pull up to the house during the party “to check on the report of smoke” from all those candles on the cake.
Hernia surgery kept him off the golf course for a while earlier this year, but he got back in the game at the earliest opportunity.
“I’ve been fortunate,” he said.
Biff Lathrop, who heads the South Carolina Golf Association, had a better description: “pretty incredible.”
His goal each time he tees up? “I want to shoot in the 80s,” he said, and a list of his most recent scores reveals he achieved that mark four times in 10 rounds with a low of 82 and a high of 95.
With a twinkle in his eye, he said, “If I can’t shoot my age, I better quit.”
No chance of that. This golfing treasure just keeps rolling along.
Gamecocks win first event of new season
USC men’s coach Bill McDonald wants to use the fall season to develop consistent production to support All-American Ryan Hall, and the first step provided promise.
After rain washed out the scheduled opener, the Gamecocks got into action Monday and Tuesday in the J.T. Poston Invitational in Sapphire, North Carolina and earned the 25th tournament win in McDonald’s 16 seasons.
Hall, junior Jack Wall and freshman Gene Zeigler posted top-15 finishes, and sophomore Liam Shinn, playing as an individual and not counting in the team score, placed 18th. Senior transfer Evans Lewis tied for 25th and sophomore Rafe Reynolds came in 27th.
“All three tournament rounds were excellent team efforts I thought and Gene and Evans were excellent in their debuts,” McDonald said. “We were fortunate to get this victory, and we gained some valuable final round back-nine experience, which should only make us better.”
Chip shots. A pair of former Furman golfers, Reona Hirai (Sacramento, California) and Dawn Woodard (Greenville), advanced to match-play in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Berkeley Hall Club in Bluffton. Woodard won three matches before falling in the quarterfinals and Hirai won once before being eliminated. ... U.S. Women’s Amateur champion Jensen Castle (West Columbia), who plays for Kentucky, tied for third individually in the in the Mason Rudolph Championship in Franklin, Tennessee. Clemson’s women shared 11th in the team competition. ... The teams of Charles Warren-Brent Delahoussaye and Jeremy Revis-Chris Eassy earned spots in the 2022 U.S. Mid-Amateur in qualifying at Florence CC. ... South Carolina used a dominating victory over an elite field in the Annika Intercollegiate to vault to No. 1 in the Women’s Golf Coaches Association’s second poll of the young season. The Gamecocks, whose next start will be on Oct. 4 in the Windy City Collegiate near Chicago, jumped 10 spots in the poll.