News - Local/State - Andrew Dys

Tuesday, Jul. 29, 2008

He shows his age, but only on the scorecard

For golfers, "shooting your age," means scoring at or under your years. Waterford Golf Club pro Dan Morely describes the feat as a milestone players hope to achieve, "maybe once in a lifetime."

Lou Arko never had a lesson. He is 81 years old. Arko shot under his age four times -- just in the last couple of weeks. A 76 on July 18. An 80 on July 22. Then 80s on Thursday and Friday.

Arko said he has shot his age or under 34 times in the past several months, since he and his playing partners started keeping track.

"And probably close to a hundred times total," Arko said. "I think the first time, I shot 68 when I was 70."

And he's done it all the past couple-years, three or four days a week, in all weather, with Parkinson's disease, a neurological disorder that gives him a slight tremor and a bit of a problem with his balance.

"An amazing athlete," said Tom Carey, one of the group of about 20 guys who play regularly at Waterford with Arko.

Arko, retired from engineering and sales, is older by more than 10 or 15 years than most golfers he plays with. "A great competitor, too," Carey said. "Let's just say he doesn't like to lose."

That means guys like Arko don't want to lose a couple of bucks that grown men sometimes pull from pants pockets to keep a game of golf interesting.

"I call it his Social Security supplement," Carey said.

John Liebe, who organizes the golfing group, said Arko's key is "hitting it straight."

That means while big hitters are in the woods chasing errant drives, Arko is in the fairway waiting to count his low scores and money.

"Phenomenal," said Morely, the professional golfer. "I've been in the golf business for six years, and played with more people than I can count since I was 6 years old. And I don't know anybody else who scored their age."

Dennis Crocker, one of the gang, called Arko the golfing competitor, "Fierce."

Arko was a star basketball player at the University of Akron in his native Ohio, and even turned down a shot at the fledgling National Basketball Association almost 60 years ago because the pay was just $2,000 a year. Not long after that, after a basketball tournament, the sponsor gave him a set of golf clubs -- Arko had never picked up a club -- as a reward for his most valuable play.

"That sponsor had a sporting goods store, by the name of Newman," Arko said. "His son did all right. Son's name was Paul."

Yes, Paul Newman, the actor.

Arko is such a competitor that he doesn't even give an inch to the first man to walk on the moon. About 15 years ago, Arko was back visiting Ohio and his brother-in-law told him a group of three good players needed a fourth.

"I said 'sure,' and there with us on the first tee is Neil Armstrong," Arko said.

The four men played a nip-and-tuck match. Armstrong signed the scorecard as a keepsake for Lou Arko. The scorecard remains in a frame on Arko's office wall.

I ask Arko: "Lou, come on. Did you whip the 'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind' legend? The man whose footsteps froze the world in time in 1969?"

And Arko the golfer, who never had a lesson, who got his first set of clubs from Paul Newman's father, said, "Oh, yeah. He hooked one drive across the road on the front nine and went after that ball, dodging cars to get there. I knew I had him."