Video: Grannies on the Green

Five retired women united by their love of golf.

Video by Ben Bagley

Five Whatcom County women, all over age 65, are united through their love of golf. This documentary-style video takes us onto the fairways with this quintet of grandmas to learn life lessons learned from the wonderful game of golf. The video introduces Donna, Bonnie, Gert, Judy and Edie as they engage in their tri-weekly trek through the Raspberry Ridge golf course.

Click here to read Bagley’s article on golfing grannies.

Transcript

Edie: Nice shot, Donna.

Donna: Thank you!

Donna: My name is Donna, and I am a golfer. I have played for 20 years.

Judy: I’m Judy. I’ve been golfing for about 30 years.

Edie: My name is Edie I’ve only been golfing for about 15 years, compared to some of these ladies who have been golfing for a long time.

Bonnie: I’m Bonnie, and I like to golf, and I like to sew. I’ve golfed for about 35 years.

Gert: I’m Gert. I started in my mid-fifties and, um…I’ll be 82 tomorrow.

Judy: Well, at the time used to play softball and volleyball and I felt I was getting too old to do that. So, I thought of golf, and I liked being outside and I liked walking on the lawn, and so I thought I’d try it. And I was hooked.

Bonnie: I started because we lived in a rural neighborhood and the guys were golfing, and my girlfriend and I decided that they were having too much fun. They needed us. So, we started golfing too.

Donna: I moved up here about 14 years ago, and my son- in-law said Raspberry Ridge is a good place to golf because it’s sandy and you can golf year-round.

Edie: We live here on the golf course. My husband was a golfer, and when I retired the neighborhood ladies were all golfing and they kind of sucked me in. And the course is always almost always in really good shape, depending on the weather. They take really good care of the course. We play weather permitting, three days a week.

Bonnie: The experience just gets better and better. Not because I get better, But it just gets better. Oh, my favorite part is — I’m going to get all emotional, I can tell — is probably the camaraderie

Voices: Oh my gosh! What are the odds of that happening?

Bonnie: You know, I just enjoy following the little white ball around.

Gert: I got a hole in the one that was on number three and the hole in one to me is a by chance.

Oh! It went in.

Donna: Well a round of golf for me is nine holes, and that gives me two miles of walking, pushing my cart and swinging my club twice as many times as anybody I’m golfing with

Bonnie: Well, I think mentally and physically, it’s good. gets you out and about.

Gert: Oh, I love to walk the course, but I think that’s going to change because my body doesn’t quite want to do that anymore.

Judy: I do it for exercise and to keep moving because I have some arthritis.

Bonnie: Right now, I’m waiting for a hip replacement so it’s hard. I had my other hip replaced and that improved, so this is going to get better too. And I’ll be able to get out there and walk again.

So that’s, that’s good.

Donna: I have shared this with, my love of it, with my grandson and he now is a golfer, and that makes me very happy.

Edie: I don’t think that it’s gotten more difficult, it’s just I have kind of relaxed about it. Life is too short, that is to get all- all concerned. It’s not a competitive sport. I don’t feel if I don’t do well, I’m not hurting anybody, anybody, not even me. Because it’s not that important. In the big scheme of things, golf is a joy rather than a trial. And I know there are some people who make it a trial, and I’m not one of those.

Judy: Sometimes it gets frustrating. And so when I we move to the next one, I try to clear my mind and think, this is a new hole, a new start, and forget about the last one.

Bonnie: I’ve definitely learned patience.

Gert: I messed it up.

Bonnie: …and learned that you know, you have a bad game, but there’s another day or you have a bad hole and there’s another hole right after that usually. So, yeah, and you know, the older I get, the more I forget that bad hole and I move on.

Donna: I’ve learned to be very humble and-and I think I’ve learned to not give up.

Edie: Just really appreciate life and everything that we have around us to live here in this incredible area, and I don’t know about life lessons other than just really appreciating life and being well enough to be doing this, and hopefully for a long time.