Salem - His hands are old and weathered but still look beautiful when they form a grip on a golf club. His swing is short in both directions, but the ball still flies straight and true and surprisingly far.
Fred Hawkins, 85, wears a back brace when he plays now. He has suffered two fractured vertebrae in the last year, one while swinging a club.
"I don't have a golf game anymore," he tells old friends who stop to greet him at Spring Valley Country Club, just over the Wisconsin border from his boyhood home in Antioch, Ill. "I just kind of walk around out there."
Don't let him fool you.
Hawkins shot an 80 from the forward tees on Monday, including an estimated double-bogey on a par-5 when he picked up after hitting his third shot into a pond. The rest was legit, including several deft par saves, some from spots that would have challenged Phil Mickelson.
As impressive as it was, you didn't come to see the golf.
You came to hear the stories.
Hawkins is one of the last living connections to the Ben Hogan-Sam Snead era on the PGA Tour. He joined the tour in 1947.
During his prime, there were no swing gurus or sports psychologists, no titanium drivers or manicured fairways. Half the golf balls were out of round before they were even hit and players carried a metal ring to test them. There were no yardage markers on courses; the game was played by feel.
He left the tour in 1965, driven from the game by alcoholism, a problem he overcame. He had his last drink in 1978 and went on to become one of the founding members of the Senior Tour (now Champions Tour) in 1980.
Hawkins won twice on the regular tour, made 21 holes-in-one and two double-eagles, once shot a 60 at El Paso (Texas) Country Club and shot his age for the first time when he was 64 (and hundreds of times since). Raymond Floyd once called him the best chipper he'd ever seen.
Friend of Ben
Hawkins was one of Hogan's few close friends and the two played dozens of practice rounds together. The "Wee Ice Mon," as the Scots called Hogan, was an inveterate loner who conquered a wicked hook and went on to become one of the game's greatest players.
"Hogan was hard to get to know," Hawkins says. "He could be as gracious as he wanted to be. Sometimes he was preoccupied and he'd walk right by you and not speak to you. Sometimes he was kind of cruel to people."
Hawkins also got to know Gene Sarazen and Bobby Jones, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. He hung out with actor Fred MacMurray, played big-stakes matches with the likes of Lloyd Mangrum and, later in his career, played practice rounds with a young bomber named Jack Nicklaus.
"Nicklaus asked me once if I could arrange a practice round with Ben," Hawkins says. "I said, 'Sure. I'll talk to him. We'll get somebody and you and I will play him at Colonial.' I don't remember who we got but we came to the 11th hole at Colonial, the long par-5. Nobody ever went for the green back then.
"We drove down there and hit our second shots and, of course, Nicklaus is way down there (ahead of them off the tee). But he pushed his drive over on a service road to the right of the fairway. It's lying on flat, barren, kind of clay-looking ground. And in front of him is a big row of tall, skinny trees.
"He called me over and said, 'What do you think I should do here?' I said, 'Well, take a 9-iron and punch it down there.' He said, 'You know, I think I can take my 3-wood and cut it over those trees and put it on the green.' I couldn't believe it. I said, 'OK, why don't you go ahead and do that.' Sure enough, he did it. I mean, I couldn't get it over those trees if I teed up a 7-iron.
"I looked over at Hogan and he was just shaking his head."
Skinning Arnold
Another time, Hawkins and Gene Littler took on Dow Finsterwald and a dashing young pro named Arnold Palmer in a money game.
"I shot 62 and Littler cut me four shots so we shot 58 best-ball," Hawkins says. "I got Arnold for a couple hundred dollars and he kept saying, 'We gotta go another nine. We gotta go another nine.' Finsterwald didn't want to go another nine and Littler had allergies and he couldn't go on.
"Arnold kept at it so finally I said, 'All right.' I got Jerry Barber for a partner and he got Johnny Bulla. We played 10 more holes and I birdied five of them and Barber birdied two more for 7-under net. Arnold was so mad."
Hawkins finished a career-best fourth on the PGA Tour money list in 1956 and the most he ever earned in one year was about $25,000. He made $205,228 in his career - equivalent to one top-five finish today. He acquired a reputation for not being able to finish off tournaments. By his own count, Hawkins had 27 runner-up finishes, though the Tour credits him officially with 19.
Hawkins had a shot at glory at the 1958 Masters. He needed birdies on the final two holes to force a playoff with Palmer. He made a 10-footer on No. 17, but his 18-foot attempt from above the hole on No. 18 lipped out and he fell one stroke short.
"He hit the greatest putt I've ever seen," Ford said in that same TV interview. "The ball looked like it was going in the hole and went around the edge and stopped directly behind the hole, about half an inch. Impossible."
Palmer won his first major championship and the first of his four Masters titles. Had Hawkins' putt dropped, his career - and Palmer's - might have been altered dramatically.
"I've always said I've been lucky in life," Hawkins says, "but unlucky in golf."
Just missed
Still, he went on to compile four top-10 finishes in the Masters. He also placed fifth at the U.S. Open on two occasions and made the 1957 U.S. Ryder Cup team, which he considers his biggest accomplishment.
"It was the first U.S. losing team in years, but I won the only singles match," he says. "I beat Peter Alliss. He's a great guy and we were friends before and since. Occasionally, when it comes up, Peter says, 'He gave me a thumping.' "
Hawkins lives in Sebring, Fla., but still makes annual summer trips to Wisconsin to visit his brother, Chuck, who is 88 and, incidentally, shot a 75 in that Monday round at Spring Valley.
"I was talking to a friend and we got to talking about Alzheimer's," Hawkins says. "He told me, 'You're lucky. You're too old to get Alzheimer's now.' I said, 'That's the best news I've heard.' Other than that, getting old ain't worth a s---."