Linfante still walking the course at age 82
Golfer remains enamored of playing game after 40 years
By Kelly Morris
Editor in Chief

ARLINGTON — Eighty-two-year-old Lil Linfante says she isn’t a morning person but that doesn’t keep her from playing golf.

Almost every Monday, she’s up at 5:30 a.m. to play golf. If she has to, she’ll play the game on just five hours of sleep.

Linfante doesn’t play just one round of golf a week either. She plays two. She’s never taken a formal lesson, never takes a practice swing and never even thinks about using a golf cart. She puts her dark blue golf bag on a battery-powered bag transporter that she walks behind instead.

She carries seven clubs, eight if she needs her wedge for the sand traps at Ditto Golf Course in North Arlington. Her favorite club is the 3-wood, even though she admits her 4-foot-11-inch frame can’t hit the ball quite as long as she used to.

“To be her age and her stature, she’s an amazing golfer,” said Charlie Waters, an assistant golf professional at Lake Arlington and Ditto golf courses. “She’s the most energetic person that I ever met.”

Linfante, who joined the Arlington Women’s Golf Association in 1976, picked up golf on her own in New Jersey in the 1960s. The only thing that keeps her from walking the golf course now is hot weather.

“I’ve always gone my own way,” said Linfante, who is the oldest active golfer still playing 18 holes in the 70-member Arlington league. “I have walked 18 holes since I started playing. I prefer walking and enjoy it. I think it is a shame to see so many young fellows riding in a cart.”

While playing golf in New Jersey, Linfante helped start the Flanders Women’s Golf Association at the Flanders Valley Golf Course near her house. She also got the nickname “Pipeline Lil” for her straight drives down the fairway.

“I always hit down the middle and don’t get in trouble,” said Linfante, whose average score is 110. “When I do, I don’t know how to get out of it.”

But her 130-yard drives rarely find trouble, except maybe at Ditto Golf Course, where Linfante said the terrain is annoying. Every month, the Arlington league alternates between the Ditto and Lake Arlington golf courses.

“Ditto is more hilly and a little more tiresome,” she said. “You can get in trouble at any course. But at Ditto you can hit a nice shot right down the middle of the fairway, and it can roll all the way off the fairway to the rough.”

Linfante’s husband, Ed, 81, calls her his little athlete.

“I can power the ball more than she can, but I’m not as certain as to where it’s going to end up,” said her husband, who married Linfante in 1947. “She’s not a whiner. She does the best she can.”

Ed Linfante said his wife doesn’t dwell on a little bad health either. Six years ago, Lil Linfante found out she had diabetes. When doctors told her to lose weight, she did.

“She lost 20 pounds and kept it off,” said Bette Steinhibel, Linfante’s golfing partner and friend. “Who does that?”

She had cataract surgery on both eyes and had emergency surgery on a detached retina in her right eye.

“I don’t feel old at all,” Linfante said. “When you’re playing golf, everything is left at home. You just go and enjoy yourself. To be out on the golf course in the fresh air, to me, is one of the great things.”

Janet Wickstrom, who has been Linfante’s friend for more than 20 years, calls her “little Tiger,” after Tiger Woods, when she outdrives her.

“When she does, she lets us know,” said 71-year-old Wickstrom.

On Thursdays, Linfante plays a round of golf at Lake Arlington Golf Course with Wickstrom, Steinhibel and Bette Ferrerio.

Steinhibel said Linfante laughs a lot on the golf course.

“She likes to have fun, and that’s one reason she looks so good,” said 68-year-old Steinhibel. “You start getting older, and you see Lil, and you say, ‘There’s hope for me.’ ”

In 1968, on a vacation in Scottsdale, Ariz. with her husband, Linfante broke 100. At 65, she broke 90. Ed, a clockmaker, made sure she didn’t forget it. He made her two trophies — one with a brass plate on it that said, “To my better half for breaking 100 before I did.”

“She’s young at heart,” Ed said. “Many people are surprised to hear she’s over 65. That was 17 years ago.”

And at 82, Linfante is happy with her own playing style — even if it’s different than what the professionals teach younger golfers today.

“I do thank the Lord that I am able to walk down that fairway, whack that ball and enjoy the fresh air and the company of my friends,” she said. “What more could I ask?”