EXCHANGE: NIU hall of famer still going strong at 74 years

DEKALB, Ill. (AP) - Heading into the 97th Ladies Lincoln Highway Tournament, 20-time champion Ruth Heal said she doubts she'll ever make it 21.

"I don't think anymore," Heal said of her chances of winning again.

The 74-year-old has won the tournament in five different decades, as most recently as 2014 in the against-bogey format.

Before she could finish her thought about her winning days being behind her, her teammate on the Kishwaukee Country Club team, Emma Carpenter, made an immediate objection.

"Oh come on," said a smiling Carpenter, a recent DeKalb graduate who's heading to Minnesota to continue her golf career in the fall and is about a quarter of Heal's age.

Three days later, Heal finished in a tie for third in the 97th edition of the tournament, held at Kishwaukee Country Club. She finished only five points off of Carpenter's winning score.

But she said that didn't change her mind.

Three days later, Heal finished in a tie for third in the 97th edition of the tournament, held at Kishwaukee Country Club. She finished only five points off of Carpenter's winning score.

But she said that didn't change her mind.

"That's a lot in this format," Heal said. "I'm just happy for the team. We have a couple good, young players, and they did good."

Whether she extends her winning streak to six decades, Heal has one goal: She wants to compete in the 2022 edition of the Ladies Lincoln Highway.

"In three years is the 100th, and I'd like to play in the 100th - if I'm still playing golf," Heal said.

She said it's not that she doesn't plan on playing golf in three years, she just said a lot of things can happen in that time.

"Who knows; you don't know," Heal said. "You don't know if you're going to be playing or not, or even if you can still make the team in three years. We have some good kids and stuff. It helps that we have some good young people who are wanting to play on the team now."

Born in Macomb, Heal and her family moved to Sycamore, where she graduated high school and then went on to NIU, playing five sports. She started every game of her career in three different sports under hall of fame coach Mary Bell - softball, basketball and field hockey. She averaged about a double-double for her career on the hardwood, and helped the Huskies beat Northwestern and Illinois in the same year.

She also hit .468 in her softball career, and was on the first NIU women's golf team. She also played volleyball.

In a pre-Title IX world, Heal said athletics were different - she graduated in 1966. Athletes would play one sport then move right on to the other.

"The biggest thing was we got to play," Heal said. "For most everybody, they didn't have anything for women back then. So you got to college, you got to play sports. That was a big thing. It was, like, huge we got to play."

Heal played golf competitively for a while - winning back-to-back Women's International Amateur titles in 1972 and 1973, then competing in the Chicago Women's District Golf Association, among others.

But the Lincoln Highway tourney always meant a lot to her, she said. Part of that has to do with the scoring system. Unlike stroke play, in against-bogey a player earns no points for a bogey, one for a par or better and loses one for worse than a bogey. Some holes in the tournament are against-double bogey.

"I've always enjoyed the Lincoln Highway," Heal said. "We have a lot of fun with it. We do a lot of laughing. When I was serious about playing, in the Chicagoland area and all those tournaments, you had to play for score. Now I can play in Lincoln Highway, you don't have that pressure - I have to make a birdie. All I have to do is beat the bogey."

The flight structure, she said, also makes it enjoyable for everyone.

"We kind of call it a housewives tournament, and that's kind of what it is," Heal said. "People who have higher handicaps, they're competing against people in their flights. They're not competing against me, or against Emma Carpenter. They're competing against people in their flights."

Heal said her goals aren't too complex regarding her future in the Ladies Lincoln Highway Tournament.

"I just don't want to go out and embarrass myself at this point," Heal said. "I just want to go out and do halfway good. It gets harder ...."

"Says the woman who shot her age," Carpenter said.

"Well," Heal said, responding to the recent high school graduate, "that was last year."

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Source: The (DeKalb) Daily Chronicle, https://bit.ly/2JSRjo7

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Information from: The Daily Chronicle, http://www.daily-chronicle.com