Breaking 90: Billy Maxwell celebrated at TPC Sawgrass

Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL)

Billy Maxwell is entering his 10th decade as feisty as ever.

"I'm feeling better than I've felt in a long time," said the seven-time PGA Tour winner and owner of the Hyde Park Golf Club, who was thrown a 90th birthday party on Monday at the TPC Sawgrass. "I'm doing some exercises, watching some golf ... not playing like I used to but I like watching these young guys on TV."

The 17 lounge at the clubhouse was decorated with green and white balloons, a nod to Maxwell's alma mater, North Texas. He helped the Mean Green win four consecutive NCAA team titles, along with Don January and Buster Reed.

Maxwell later won the 1951 U.S. Amateur at Saucon Valley in Pennsylvania, then embarked on a solid 22-year PGA Tour career in which he had 114 top-10 finishes and made 89 percent of the cuts in 486 starts.

Maxwell's best season was 1961 when he won the Bob Hope Desert Classic and the Insurance City Open. He made the top-25 in 17 of his 24 starts, with nine top-10s.

He is the oldest living PGA Tour winner residing on the First Coast or with area ties.

Maxwell wore his navy blue Texas Golf Hall of Fame blazer, was toasted by his daughter, Melanie Bevill, heard the obligatory "Happy Birthday" and blew out of the candles after a mulligan or two.

More than 60 people attended, including past PGA Tour members such as Bob Dickson, Duke Butler III and Mark Carnevale' and area club professionals such as Nick Clark and Boots Farley who came to know Maxwell for owning one of the area's oldest golf courses, which remains a public gem on the Westside.

Also present were members of "The Munchkins," the group of original TPC Sawgrass members that included Maxwell who still play several times a week at either the Stadium or Dye's Valley courses.

Maxwell resides in an assisted living facility and balance issues keep him from playing golf. However, he was able to go to a clinic at the Jacksonville Beach Golf Club last week for patients at Brooks Rehabilitation, and hit a few shots in a wheelchair made to accommodate golfers.

"It felt like heaven," Maxwell said of swinging a golf club.

But that doesn't mean he can't dispense a few tips.

"He still reminds me to keep my shoulders square," said Jennifer Eckensberger, who has been Maxwell's massage therapist for the last 10 years and jumped at the chance to play golf with him at least once a week when he was able. "His knowledge of the game, his stories are incredible. I hang on every word."

"'Clear the left hip ... I can still hear him,'" said Garrett Bevill of Dallas, Maxwell's grandson. "That's what he always stresses to me."

Melanie Bevill said her father still enjoys hanging around a practice range, watching other golfers come and go. She drives him to Hyde Park as often as possible, a course he and his late partner, Chris Blocker bought in 1971.

Not only does Bevill and her husband Tommy plan to keep the course in the family but they are renovating the clubhouse.

"He still wants to be on a golf course," she said. "He still eats, breathes and sleeps golf."

Maxwell watches every broadcast of a PGA Tour event or major, eagerly awaiting shots hit by his two favorite modern players Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

"When they take him into the TV room [at his residence] they know to put the golf on one of the TVs," Melanie Bevill said.

He also pops in a CD of his idol and fellow Texan Ben Hogan either playing or conducting clinics.

"He never gets tired of watching Ben's swing," Melanie Bevill said.

Like many golf fans, Maxwell is frustrated by slow play. But he's diplomatic about it.

"Some of them seem more determined to get up there and hit the ball than others," he said.

Maxwell also is participating in the American Golf Memories Project, which is run by former TPC Sawgrass director of golf Billy Dettlaff.

Each month a group of residents at memory care facilities meet at the TPC Sawgrass. Dettlaff supervises a series of mental exercises centering around golf that he said, "triggers the mind."

One of the exercises involves the participants matching a golf term, course or player with the letters of the alphabet.

This month's meeting coincided with Maxwell's birthday party. Dettlaff brought the program to the U.S. after hearing of similar meetings at Carnoustie, in Scotland.

Usually, all it takes to jog Maxwell's memory is to simply steer the conversation to golf.

"We'll be watching a tournament where he played, and it's fun to hear him start talking about the guys he played with, the shots they hit and the courses," his daughter said. "He can still pull out those memories.

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