It’s Gray on Green at Roxbury Putters Club

‘If you were our age--the youngest guy out here is over 70--what else could you do?’

--Herb Rimlinger

As they have nearly every weekday since Eisenhower was President and Elvis was king, a small group of old men gather at Roxbury Park to putter around.

Perfunctory greetings are exchanged, then they get down to the business of their golf game. Well-worn challenges are extended and insults bandied, lines are drawn and teams chosen for a match that has continued for more than 30 years.

For many of the senior citizens who play at the Beverly Hills park, the game makes their day. Bordered by a baseball diamond, a bedroom community and a busy street, with Century City looming in the west, the calm of the putting green provides a refuge from the world beyond the fringe.

Daily Routine

“Every one of the guys has a problem of some kind or another,” said Phil Grodin, an 82-year-old ex-newspaperman and president of the Roxbury Putters Club. “A sick wife or a physical thing, so this gets them out of the house for a couple, three hours.”

While some of them have busy lives off the green, the players’ daily routine is inseparably linked to the links. The novice, the pro and the occasional hacker have become fervent putting partners over the years.

“If you were our age--the youngest guy out here is over 70--what else could you do?” asked Herb Rimlinger, 82, a retired sheet metal worker with a stooped-over putting stance. “That’s the biggest problem with retirement, finding something to do.”

Most of the club’s 20 members have been doing it a while, some as long as two decades. A few for three. They always emerge for their two-hour ritual in the early afternoon, just as the sun gets the hottest but before the green dries out.

One hot and humid afternoon last week, Paul Malnick, a wiry 75-year-old retired Hollywood prop man, and Grodin played while a less hardy handful sat in the shade. Grodin, who has a quick tongue and a slow backswing, seemed more interested in talking than taking his strokes.

Blows a 25-Footer

Malnick--his head down, his feet planted and his eye on the hole--studied his putt, a 25-footer. After the long look, he slowly cocked his battered club knee-high before giving the ball a quick poke. It missed badly.

He shook his head, wiped his brow and walked off to the next hole.

During any given game, half the club sits out. The ones sitting out exchange stale stories, swap the latest gossip or tell jokes. When the game finishes, the players trade places and the scene is repeated.

“We come out to have fun and see who can tell the biggest lies,” Grodin said.

Club members contribute $2 a month, which goes for get-well cards for players and family, a periodic luncheon and tips for the greens keepers, Grodin said.

Sometimes, the money changes hands outside the clubhouse. To liven up the games, matches are sometimes played for anything from pennies to two-bits. But even when the stakes are high, individual players receive mostly cheers, not jeers, from competitors and teammates.

William Franklin, the oldest member of this most senior circuit at 89, plays with a passion rivaled by none. When the rest want to sit, he’s ready to go at it again.

Although he takes some ribbing from the younger players--people in their 70s or early 80s--Franklin can dish it out as well. Grodin, a self-styled Don Rickles who likes to keep his compatriots on their toes, was needling Franklin about the time it takes him to putt around. Casting his eyes upward and sighing, Franklin motioned to Grodin, who’s five years his junior, and said paternally: “He’s a good boy when he sleeps.”

Communal Groan

Earlier, when Franklin came within an inch of sinking a 20-footer, the communal groan from his playing partners was heartfelt.

But the bonds formed over the years do not extend beyond the confines of the green. Club members do not socialize and have largely refused attempts to extend their association, Grodin said.

David Kotz, 81, who works part-time as a sales representative for a resort firm, said the players like to keep their contact limited, preferring to go their own ways when the game is through.

Kotz claims the coveted distinction of playing at the park the longest; others dispute that but none bother to make the claim themselves. Grodin thinks all the longevity talk is silly.

“Age is just a number. It all depends on how you feel and if you have a sense of humor,” he said. Grodin is fond of telling ribald jokes from a cheat sheet he keeps in his wallet.

Dwindling Numbers

But Grodin and the others get melancholy when talk turns to the group’s dwindling numbers and lost friends.

“There’s quite a few guys that used to come out here but don’t anymore--they’re not living,” Rimlinger said.

With that in mind, Grodin said, the club is holding a perpetual membership drive.

“We lose a few from time to time, you know, natural attrition,” he said. “We’re not too picky, we’ll take anyone. Look who we got now.”