BALLWIN, Mo. — On Tuesday mornings from the spring through the fall, you know where to find Terry Jacoby.
Tuesday is league day at Ballwin Golf Course, and Jacoby doesn't miss league day.
“I know it’s harder for some of us on really cold or hot days. We say, ‘Oh we don’t want to play.' But then we know Terry’s gonna be there, so we’re gonna be there," league organizer Kelley Kersten said.
But Jacoby has a pretty valid excuse if she wouldn't want to get up to go put in the work on the golf course. She is almost a century old, after all.
“(I was born on) February 27, 1924," Jacoby said.
At 98, Jacoby hasn't slowed down, though. While she does feel her age sometimes, she has the drive to keep herself active.
“Some days I feel more, but make myself get out of bed and go to exercise class," Jacoby said.
“Ninety-eight years old, some people get crabby… But she is smiling all the time," Tuesday golf league member Jerry Rosen said.
She wasn't always an avid golfer, though, and it took a specific reason for her to even get into the game in the first place.
“I became a golfer because my husband loved to play so much. He would come home from work and go off and play golf and leave me stranded with the kids so I decided I had to learn how to play golf, too," Jacoby said.
“She was smart. She started playing so she could spend time with dad and get out of the house and leave all the kids to my sister Judy and I," Jacoby's oldest son, 70-year-old Paul Jacoby, said.
A nurse in the cadet program during World War II, Terry Jacoby has lived all over the country. She has also raised nearly an entire baseball starting lineup of kids.
“It seemed like every time we moved I had a baby… So we had 7 children. And you just add another potato to the food," she laughed.
Along with the seven kids, Terry Jacoby has 17 grandkids and three great-grandkids and counting.
On the course, she can still swing it, but you won't catch her bragging about her game too much.
“(My golf game is) Lousy," she laughed. "No, I’ve just never been a very good golfer. I was always in the C group, the end of the group, but I just like being out there.”
She does have some advice that comes with 50 years of golf knowledge, though.
“Keep playing and have fun with it, don’t get so serious. That’s what I’ve done this last year. I don’t keep score. I just hit the ball and move," she said.
While it may be just for fun, she tracks every move she makes on the course, and is as sharp as ever.
“She’ll call me up after she gets done with golf and say, ‘I got down to the creek in two, I got over in three.' You know how golfers explain their whole game? She tells me stroke by stroke her whole game. And I’m thinking, 'You’re 98 years old and you’re mentally that sharp to do that,'" Paul Jacoby said.
“She is so sharp… She keeps up with the news, she knows everything that’s going on. She’s more sane than I am most days," Kersten said.
But of course, it's not really about the golf for Jacoby and her league-mates.
“I just love all the girls so much. That’s why I keep playing. Because I want to see them and be with them," Terry Jacoby said.
“I run the league and I get a little frazzled, in this world we all get frazzled… and she’s taught me so well to just slow down, take one thing at a time and just live in the moment. Be in the moment," Kersten said.
“She’s kind, she’s loving, she cares about all of us and all of us care about her. Just a real inspiration to people. I’m 62 and I hope I’m exactly like her when I’m 98," Rosen said.