Diets Rich in Golf

We had no sooner landed at the airport in Springfield when we set off (the folks and I) for a typical Ozark lunch: fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy and green beans, big ol’ helpings of breaded tomatoes, cottage fried potatoes, fried okra, fried apples, oversized homemade rolls with butter and white gravy and apple butter and sorghum, and a tall iced tea sweetened with the real thing. Somewhere between forkfuls of chicken and okra we got to wondering: How do the celebrities here in the Nashville of the Ozarks handle living smack dab in the middle of all that good food?

Charley Pride

Vitality

* Golf, 12 handicap. “I’d play all day and all night if I could. That’s how much I love golf. And, no, that’s not my exercise. I drive a cart. I get my exercise the way I want to, not carrying a bag and walking the course.”

* Run, sprint, stretch, calisthenics. “I try to stick to exercises we did in baseball training. I think it should still keep me in shape. I don’t like to fix something that ain’t broke.”

Vittles

* Morning: “I’ve been known to eat six or seven pieces of toast, four or five pieces of bacon and sorghum and molasses and potatoes and one egg. I’m 10 pounds over now, so to get rid of that, I’ll just eat less than what I eat all the time. And no potatoes if I am cutting back.”

* Noon: A 16-ounce steak “and if I’m cutting back, I cut it in half and take two days to eat one setting. Lately I’ve been eating hamburger.”

* And Night: “Sometimes I don’t eat dinner, maybe a bite or two of hamburger. Maybe a dip of vanilla ice cream, one scoop.”

* Drink: Water. “I drink a tin gallon of water. When I’m playing golf, I’ll bet you I drink two gallons a day. Hit me a ball, take another sip of water.”

Andy Williams

Vitality

* Golf, 15 handicap. “I love to play golf, every day that I can. My brother, Dick, lives here and we play 18 holes at 7 in the morning. I use a cart because it’s hilly.”

* “I get up very early, 4:30 or 5, so by 6 I start stretching for half an hour. Then I do 20 minutes on the treadmill.”

Vittles

* Morning: “I have a chocolate protein drink, sometimes with a banana, and I’ll have a piece of toast with peanut butter and jelly.”

* Noon: “I’ll have a baked potato with nonfat cottage cheese, a chicken breast and sometimes with a vegetable, and salad with olive oil and vinegar. A pretty good meal because that’s my main meal.”

* And Night: “Around 5 o’clock, before the show goes on at 7, I’ll have a bowl of fresh chicken soup with vegetables, barley, lot of chicken in it, and then I’ll have some nonfat cottage cheese with peaches. And when I get home, around 10 o’clock, I’ll have maybe sliced tomato with mozzarella and some oil on it.”

* Drink: Bottled water. “I drink a couple of glasses of wine when I get home.”