INDIANAPOLIS — If you want to be a member of the Old School Players, club president John Durant says there’s a few things you ought to know.
For starters, Old School Players aren’t a bunch of guys out there “running with the young ladies,” Durant explains.
In fact, the Old School Players aren’t doing much running at all. It’s a senior golf club, governed by standard bi-laws and an interesting set of unwritten rules.
“Every Wednesday is golf day,” Durant, 75, says. “No doctor’s appointments or any kind of business meetings on Wednesday.”
For a group of guys ages 55-and-up – some with hip replacements, some with knee replacements, some who pop two tablets of Aleve before teeing off – that rule is important, he says.
Friendly trash talk is par for the course, too – “You’ve got to be able to take it.”
“And if you don’t know how to play,” Durant says, “you don’t learn in our group.”
For those that aren’t members of the Old School Players, of which there’s only 24 allowed, you might be dubbed a “fellow player.”
“Fellow players are the ones that play with us if we have a vacancy,” John says. “It’s like a waiting list.”
On the likely scenario that a member of the Old School Players drops out – because of, say, “a bad knee” – a majority-rule vote system can turn a fellow player into an official Old School Player.
From Pleasant Run to Sarah Shank and beyond, Old School Players pull up and play golf at courses across the city.
They carry the legacy of Indianapolis Black golfers, like Forrest T. Jones Jr., who was the first Black golfer at IU and the team’s captain in the 1950s.
But mostly they’re just there to have a good time, even on days when Durant’s taking bad swings.
“Golf is a game you fall in love with,” Durant says. “I always have fun.”
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