HENRY ABELS

Henry Abels of Springfield, Ill. shot his first round of golf during Teddy Roosevelt's first year in the White House, and now, at 90, he's still going strong. Each year since he was 71 he has shot a score that equaled his age, and he intends to go on doing so until he's 100. An erect, sprightly man of 128 pounds, Abels estimates that he has played 8,300 rounds of his favorite game. "It gets easier as I get older, of course," he grins.

As honorary president of the Franklin Life Insurance Company of Springfield—the company with which he started 59 years ago as auditor and from which he retired as board chairman in 1952—Abels puts in a five-day week dealing with problems of company policy. But he has never, in all his years, brought shop talk to the links. "If you discuss business on the golf course, both the business and the golf suffer. If I have any secret about coming along this far it is that I maintain a strong interest in my work when I work and a strong interest in my golf when I play golf."

PHOTO

ART SHAY