100-year-old golfer celebrates birthday on the green; says her secret is 2 shots of whisky every night
LONG BEACH, Calif. - Teeing up for her centennial year, Evelyn Haesloop is doing what she loves, and for her 100th birthday, that means hitting the green.
She's been playing golf for 60 years, she is a member at several courses in Long Beach, and for decades she plays a round or two every week with her posse of girlfriends. She even has her own parking spot at Skylinks Golf Course.
"Mainly I golf because of the sociability of all the women, they're so wonderful to me— they're my family," said Haesloop. "And the exercise and being outside."
The Long Beach native was born in 1921 but her family moved to Canada when she was a child. That's where she grew up through college and moved back to Long Beach in 1946.
The former dietitian eventually married, didn’t have any kids, and was widowed in 2004.
"When my husband was alive, we did both our sailing and our camping and that's what I enjoyed the most I think," she said. "I miss both of those things."
"100 years old, did you ever think the day would come?" asked FOX 11's Sandra Endo.
"No, no," said Haesloop with a laugh. "I never even thought of it!"
Her biggest piece of advice?
"Just to love everybody I guess, just be happy. And don't get upset," she said.
Her friends celebrated her milestone with a golf outing and fundraiser for her local church charity.
"She has a charity through her church called Rising Tide, so all the money going in that box over there goes directly to Rising Tide, it's an after school program," explained her friend, Sue Stein.
"Evelyn at 100 years old doesn't wear a hearing aid, doesn't wear glasses. And gets mad at us because we use our phones to calculate our score and handicap and she does it all in her head. So if we ever have an excuse like 'I don't feel good' or 'oh my knee hurts,' she's like 'you big babies,' so there's no excuses," another friend told FOX 11.
And of course, having a secret to longevity is par for the course when you reach triple digits.
"What's your secret?" asked Endo.
"Two shots of Canadian Club every night," Haesloop said.
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