Last Saturday I had the good fortune of playing golf with this gentlemen who will be 97 in a few days. To put this into some perspective, for a person born in 1918, the odds according to some sources I saw were on the order of 0.50% of living to 100. To put this into some perspective, for males born in 1960, your odds of living to 100 are more than 10%, for women it is closer to 16%. More than 82% of all people who are 100 or greater are women.
If living to 97 were not enough, his spouse is 95 and they will celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary in September, if, as he claims, “we are both still here”. The odds of finding someone who has lived as long as he as seems astronomical.
Early on in the round I asked him what was the key to living this long and being married 75 years. He claimed most of his success was due to his wife’s cooking. He claims he would rather eat her cooking at home rather than eat any other place.
He began playing golf at 58 and hit his first hole in one a few years ago, and his second two years ago. Last Saturday he came close to hitting his third. We made it around the course in a respectable 3 hours and 51 minutes, me walking and him riding in a cart. He never missed a fairway and was close to if not on the greens on many of his approaches and shot a number less than his age.
70 years ago, itself a lifetime, he served as the administrative assistant to the chief surgeon of Patton’s Third Army “during the hostilities in Europe” as he put it and was at the headquarters when Patton was accidentally killed.
He has visited all 7 continents and 78 countries. But this was his first selfie!
Originally from Delaware, he moved to North Carolina many years ago to join a manufacturing company and later worked in the insurance industry.
Perhaps the best part of enjoying a round of golf with Granville, given some vision loss, all my shots seemed to look good to him, which they weren’t while his were sitting right in the middle of the fairway!
If I am fortunate enough to make it to 97, I hope I can make it around a golf course as effortlessly as he can and still shoot below my age.
Here’s hoping he makes it to 100 and many more anniversaries!
