While Pierre Choquette might play the game of golf, his passion and personality of enjoying every round is something to behold.
The 81-year-old has so much fun with the sport, he has kept track of every single round he has shot his age (or lower) in his lifetime. Choquette has done so 402 times to date.
“I thought to myself ‘that’s crazy.’ I thought that was pretty incredible,” Choquette says.
Choquette is a member of Rocky Crest Golf Club in MacTier, Ont. He plays there three times a week and buys everyone drinks whenever he hits a significant milestone.
“When I got to 400, I had to buy everybody a drink,” he said with a chuckle.
It all started for Choquette when he caddied his father when he was eight-years-old.
“I remember beating him (his dad, in golf) for this first time when I was 10,” Choquette says. “He was left-handed, so initially, I had to play left-handed, we didn’t have any right-handed clubs.”
He slowly learned the ins-and-outs of the game while caddying at a private course in Montreal between the ages of 13 and 16-years-old. He also started playing golf himself from local courses throughout Quebec.
“When I went to the University of Laval, I was on the golf team there,” Choquette says. “It was kind of neat, but we didn’t do very well (chuckles).”
Choquette first started keeping track of how many times he shot his age or lower when he read an article from the Georgia State Golf Association about another golfer doing the same thing.
“A couple of months ago, there was an article in there about an individual who was 85-years-old, who plays almost every day, and he’s holding the Guiness World Record for the number of rounds he’s shot his age or better,” he says.
Choquette believes the exact number of times this individual shot his age or lower was more than 1,100 times. He then started wondering how many times he had shot his age or lower.
“I remember that if I went back to 2012, I could then look at all the statistics and look at by year how many times I shot 70 or below,” he explains.
By going back all the way to look at what he shot when he turned 70, Choquette found that he shot 70 on his 70th birthday.
“I don’t think I ever shot my age until I was 70-years-old,” he said. “But I was still playing from around 6000-6500 yards.”
Out of the 402 rounds he shot his age or lower, Choquette recalls his most memorable one being at a course in Georgia at age 76.
“I had 13 pars, five birdies and shot 67,” he says. “I think I only missed one green.”
In fact, Choquette has played numerous courses across Ontario, Quebec, the U.S. and various parts of the world for either competitive fun or business trips.
“We had customers in China, Asia, they all had great courses there,” he said. “I lived in Europe for about five years, Belgium, Switzerland, I played a few courses there.”
It was only a few years ago that Choquette began posting his scores in the Golf Canada score centre. His current handicap is 7.2, and he once had a handicap of +1 in 1977.
Not only does Choquette keep track of each round he shoots his age or lower, but he also tracks how many rounds he plays by age.
“I think in the past, 40 per cent of my 402 games came when I was 78,” he says. “When I was 79, I had 83 games. When I was 80, I had 112 games below my age. Since my 81st birthday, which was last September, I had 71 games.”
He even keeps all scorecards from each time he shoots below par to remember his rounds by.
Of course, where would the passion for keeping track of such a stat be without passion for the game of golf itself?
“I cannot think of any sport where you can still be physically competitive and have such a good time and good exercise,” Choquette says.
Exercise is key for Choquette whenever he plays the game. He prefers walking Rocky Crest because it is a physical activity.
“I don’t carry my bag anymore, but to me, the best experience of all my years of playing golf is four guys walking down the fairway either carrying their bag or playing with a caddy,” he said.
Not only does Choquette live and play the game for fun and health, but he still shares his connection to Laval University’s golf team with the Choquette Family Foundation.
“We put $50,000 a year from the foundation into scholarships and the funds for them to go practice in Florida,” he says.
From giving back to former schools to playing all sorts of different courses to keeping track of fascinating stats, Choquette does it all for the bottom line: his passion for golf.
“It’s such a fantastic sport,” he said. “It’s so nice to be out there on courses that are well designed, with people you enjoy playing with.”
