Ron Hoolsema is still trying to talk his wife Peggy into having another go at playing tennis instead of golf in the 55+ senior games.
“You play a great game of tennis,” he told her during an interview with the Langley Advance Times at their Brookswood home.
Peggy shook her head.
“I like to play what I’m good at,” she replied.
A year ago, Ron convinced Peggy to enter the 55-59 tennis women’s doubles at the Kimberly games, while he played in the men’s.
Both came home with medals, Ron a silver, and Peggy a bronze.
“That was because of my partner,” Peggy insisted.
She recalled being surprised, and not in a good way, by the level of ability on the tennis courts in Kimberly.
“Oh my gosh, you watch these people play [and you think] holy smokes,” Peggy recalled.
“We were a little shell-shocked” at the quality of play, Ron conceded.
Both estimate they have about four years experience playing tennis, compared to a more than four decades playing golf.
Before the tennis experiment, the two had previously won medals playing golf at the senior games.
So why try a high-stress sport they had less experience in?
“Because he wanted to,” Peggy said, pointing at her husband.
“I wanted to try something different,” Ron cheerfully admitted.
This year, they competed in the two-day golf tournament at the 55+ games in Kelowna, and both came home with medals.
Ron won gold, and Peggy won silver.
Both had to wait for the announcement after turning in their playing cards.
“He was a little shocked when his name came up,” Peggy recalled.
Ron said the Kelowna course was challenging to play. “It was a very tight course,” he recalled. “ A lot of angles.”
READ MORE: 4,200 senior athletes kick off the 55+ BC Games in Kelowna
Other Langley athletes collected medals in other sports, including swimming, lawn bowling and slow-pitch.
Among them, Moe Clint, who came back with one gold (backstroke), two silver (breaststroke) and one bronze (butterfly) medal in the men’s 55-59 category 25-metre races, as well as multiple medals in various relays
Edward and Jean Wagstaff returned with medals for lawn bowling, including gold in mixed fours.
As well, Di Linton, Monique Lizee and Joanne Poirier played on the gold-medal winning “best before” slow-pitch team that took gold in the 55-plus category
Langley is part of the 55+ games Zone Three, the Fraser Valley, which collected 178 gold medals, 136 silver and 109 bronze for a total of 423, second only to the Okanagan-Similkameen zone.
READ ALSO: 55+ BC Games coming to Abbotsford in 2022
dan.ferguson@langleyadvancetimes.com
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