Life begins at 50

Twenty years ago, if you told Rafael Aguirre that by 2013 he would have become a local golfing prodigy, he would have laughed in your face.

Talk about a surprise.

Rafael, who had never even touched a golf club until he was 50 years old, has amazed and delighted his friends and peers on the Gonzales golf scene for the past two decades by achieving incredible prowess at the sport in a relatively short time – especially when you compare him to men his age who have been playing since they were in their teens.

“I didn’t even start playing till I was 50,” Rafael says while hitting some golf balls at the Independence Park course on a Sunday morning. “But better late than never, I say.”

At 70, Rafael is happier and fitter than he’s been in years, and he says he owes it all to one man.

“When I was working in the oilfield, I hung out with a guy named Steve Petty,” he remembers. “On our daily drive, we’d pass by some golf courses. Every time we’d see one, he’d ask me, ‘Ralph, do you wanna play golf?’ And I’d say, ‘You’re crazy, man. That game ain’t for me.’”

“He would always tell me that I was wrong, and that I didn’t know what I was missing and I should give it a try,” Rafael says. “He’d heard that I used to be a left-handed baseball pitcher, and thought that if I could do that well, then chances were I could play golf pretty good.”

Rafael kept telling Steve he wasn’t interested, but Steve wasn’t having it.

“He came over to my house one Sunday and handed me a bag of golf clubs and an H-E-B bag filled with golf balls,” Rafael says. “He told me to go out to the park and try it out, and see what I could do.”

So Rafael began the arduous process of learning how to play golf. He says it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be.

“I would go out to the park and hit ball after ball,” he says. “At first, it was frustrating. I really struggled to get good, consistent hits.”

But with time and practice, Rafael’s hard work and determination paid off, and he made significant progress on the green.

“Eventually Steve asked me to go play a round with him, so I did,” he says. “I wasn’t too good, but he kept picking me up and taking me to play. One day he told me I shot a better game than some other guy who had been playing for many years.”

Steve’s assertion gave Rafael the confidence he needed to take his golf game to the next level. And the more he played, the better he got.

“I wish I would have known Steve Petty when I was in my teens,” he says. ”God knows how good I might be by now if I’d started earlier!

“I can’t thank Steve enough for getting me into this game,” Rafael says.” I love it. It’s such a good stress reliever, and I’m healthier now at 70 than I was at 50 because of golf. It’s great therapy, and the best doctor I’ve ever had.”

Suddenly, Rafael found himself competing with people who had been playing the game for decades longer than him – and he was winning.

“A couple of years ago, I won five tournaments back to back,” he says. “Those are on Wednesday nights, and we only play nine holes. A bunch of people come out and put in $10 each. Every week, you play with different guys, so the teams keep changing up. It keeps it exciting.”

During one tournament, Rafael and his friends set a course record by birdying all nine holes.

“I took third place on a farmer’s golf tournament, and I played on a Colby Brown tournament and got first place,” he says. “Just last week, I played a Rotary Club tournament and got first place.”

Rafael says it’s purely delightful to be able to show the Hispanic community that they can do good things, and as a member of that community, he can set an example by going out and being the best he can be at the game of golf.

“One day a guy named Arturo Martinez was in the barbershop the same time I was,” he recalls. “He told me he read about me in the paper all the time, playing golf. He said it made him proud that a member of the Hispanic community was winning tournaments, and that I was setting a good example for others.”

Rafael also imparts that it’s a wonderful feeling when someone calls him and asks him to be on his golf team.

“That let’s me know that I’m a competitive player,” he says. “It makes me feel good inside when they want me to play.

“When I first started playing golf, I didn’t know anybody,” he says. “When I first came out here to the park, nobody talked to me. Not even a hello. Now when I come in the clubhouse, everyone says, ‘Hey, Ralph!’ Everybody knows me, and I’ve made a lot of good friends.”

Rafael adds that some of the greetings he gets, however, are less than enthusiastic. These usually come from guys who see him and figure they’re fixing to lose.

After I won five tournaments in a row, I’d come in here and some of the guys would go, ‘Oh, no, here comes Ralph again!’ They’d say they wanted to be put on the same team as me.”

While Rafael admits that his golfing hobby doesn’t exactly make for a family outing, he remembers one particular family member, a much younger one, who accompanied him on his treks around the golf course.

“I used to bring my granddaughter down here with me when she was little, and let her drive the golf cart,” he says, chuckling at the memory. “She absolutely loved that! She was tickled to death. And here awhile back, I played in a tournament and she was with me for the whole thing. I won! It was really good having her there with me and being a part of that experience.”

Rafael recalls a particularly funny – if not the funniest – situation he ever experienced while playing golf. It came on they same day the group set its nine-hole birdie record.

“We were on Number 9 teeing off, and no one hit the green,” he says. “The green had about a four-foot bank on it, and everybody was asking who was gonna go first, so I said, ‘What the heck.’

“As I was getting ready to hit, Billy Breitschopf told me if I made that birdie, he would go down there and pick that ball up [out of the hole] with his teeth!” he says. “None of us knew at the time Billy had had false teeth.

“So I took the shot, and looked up and saw the ball pop up pretty, man,” he says. “The ball hit and started rolling. It got slower, slower, closer, closer … and … klunk! Popped right in the hole. That’s when Billy reached down, pulled up the flagpole, took out his false teeth and picked up the golf ball with ‘em. We still laugh about that one. To this day, Billy will ask me, ‘Hey Ralph, you remember that time on the 9?’ And I’ll say, ‘Yeah, you crazy fool!’”

When it comes to choosing his favorite golfers, Rafael cites Chi-Chi Rodriguez and Phil Mickelson as “the big two.”

“I like Phil ‘cause he’s left-handed, like me,” he says with a laugh. “I shared a beer with Chi-Chi once, too. It was at a country club in San Antonio, where there was a seniors’ tournament going on. He came up to me with this little cup in his hand and asked me for a little of my beer. I told him it would be an honor and a privilege to share a beer with him. What freaked him out was that I told him that in Spanish!”

While it certainly was a surprise when Rafael finally gave in and took up golf, it should come as no surprise that he wants to do it forever.

“Golf has been good to me,” he reflects, now lounging in the snugness of the clubhouse. “I’m 70 years old, and I still follow that ball. As long as the Good Lord keeps me in good health, I’m going to keep playing. I love every minute of it.”