‘Super seniors’ playing into their 90’s in weekly Peoria Women’s Golf League

PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD/WYZZ) — If it’s Wednesday, you know where to find Virginia Henderson.

Playing in the Peoria Women’s Golf League. She’s played in the league 54 years.

“If golf is a passion for anyone like me, it doesn’t make any difference as long as you can play golf,” said Henderson. “You’ve got the course you want to beat and you can’t.”

Henderson and her golf-playing buddies are part of a weekly women’s golf league founded in 1936. That’s before the LPGA was established and she is one of three “super seniors” here.

There are three women in their 90’s playing regularly in the league.

Joan McCullough/Peoria Womens Golf League ‘super senior’: “I’ve had two concerns in my life. One is to be bored, the other is to be incapacitated,” said league “super senior” Joan McCullough. “I think it’s a challenge at this point just to be able to play.”

The third “super senior” in the weekly league is Hazel Thomas.

“Golf is a game you play against yourself. You don’t play anybody else’s game, they don’t play yours,” said Thomas. “You play yourself, I like that because ‘self’ isn’t playing well right now.”

In its prime, there were 100 players in the league and a waiting list to get in. Seventy years ago, prizes included cigarettes.

Now the ladies play for fun, enjoy the fellowship and have lunch afterwards.

“When I was playing good when I was young, I wanted to par every hole,” Henderson said. “Now that I’m older, I just hope to get a par!”

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