Skip to main content

Tommy Bolt, Tempestuous Golfer June 8, 1959

If you're passing through Cherokee Village, Ark., this summer,
bring your golf clubs. There's a little public course where for
a $27 greens fee you might get to play with the best 83-year-old
golfer in the world. He's Tommy (Thunder) Bolt, who stalks the
fairways and greens booming 240-yard drives and curling in
12-footers, all while barking out a steady stream of swing
instructions that you don't even have to ask for.

Terrible Tommy, as he was known for his club-hurling eruptions
during 25 years on the PGA Tour, now puts his endless energy
into helping others enjoy the game. "If I see that a person is
receptive, I try to help him love the game a little more," says
Bolt, who plays every day and still shoots in the low 70s.

Bolt wasn't always so approachable. On the Tour he wore a scowl
on his face and had a lightning-quick fuse. Waiting for an
explosion, the galleries would yell, "Throw it, throw it," to
egg him on when he botched a shot. "I have an Irish face, and
when something goes wrong it looks like I should do something
about it," says Bolt, who infamously launched his driver into a
pond at the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills.

Bolt got a late start in pro golf, in part because he served two
years in the Army during World War II. After he turned pro in
1946--and subtracted two years from his age to make himself seem
younger--he had to work in the construction industry part time
for four years until he made enough money to join the Tour full
time. Once he got there he earned the unlikely friendship of Ben
Hogan, who seemed to open up around the freewheeling Bolt. "I
was honest. He liked that, and we both came up with not much in
our pockets," says Bolt.

Hogan changed Bolt's grip in 1955, and with a new understanding
of his swing, Bolt won three times that year. By '58 he was the
U.S. Open champion. Bolt won the last of his 15 PGA Tour titles
in '61 but stayed competitive through '71 when, at age 55, he
was tied with eventual champ Jack Nicklaus after 63 holes at the
PGA before finishing third.

Bolt has hardly slowed down. Recently he rewrote sections of his
1971 biography and instructional book, The Hole Truth, and he's
active in raising money for his church and working with young
golfers in Cherokee Village. His secret? "Marry a young woman
who makes you happy," says Bolt of 68-year-old Mary Lou, his
bride of 42 years. "Then you take care of yourself, because you
have to take care of her."

--John O'Keefe

COLOR PHOTO: GUY GILLETTE (COVER)

COLOR PHOTO: DAVID WALBERG

"I have an Irish face, and when something goes wrong it looks
like I should do something about it."