would swim across the lake on a daily basis accompanied by a beau in a canoe. There were many summer nights spent dancing at the pavilion to the likes of Guy Lombardo and Perry Como. She recalls putting for nick-

els with Mr. Como on the putting green during an afternoon before one of his band dates. Betty’s best round is an 85; she had her first hole-in-one in 1942. It was 1949 when she moved to Florida with her family. Twenty years later her father became the head pro at The Plantation and she joined him in the pro shop. When she first met Gus, he was a snappy dresser with a winning smile and a grand sense of humor.

By Gary Shorts, Palm Aire Member

Gus met Betty at Plantation Country Club near Palm Beach. She was running the pro shop for her father who was the Head Profes-sional. Gus and his wife Henrietta were visit-ing with friends from Edgewood C.C. Betty hailed from Western Pennsylvania, hav-ing grown up in the Squirrel Hill neighbor-hood of Pittsburgh. Her father, George Lums-den, had emigrated from St. Andrews, Scot-land and was a long-time club pro, having started his career at Meadville Country Club in Pennsylvania. He finally settled at Planta-tion Golf & Country Club in the mid-forties. Betty’s genes are pretty good, too. Her dad played in the Florida Senior Open at The Beach Club in Naples when he was 90. Like Gus, Betty took up the game at an early age; she played her first round of golf when she was ten. She has fond memo-ries of growing up in Western Pennsyl-vania, recalling sum-mers at Conneaut Lake Park, where she

September, 2011

At every port he would or-der a limo so he and Gus could play one of the local courses. These outings hampered Gus’s chances to tour the local sights with Betty and their other friends. Sometimes the fellow would solicit a bit of advice from Gus right at the dinner table; when other travelers learned that Gus was a golf profes-sional, he was soon giving impromptu golf lessons to a number of them who wanted all the “free” advice he would give them. “He was so good-natured about it, though,” Betty remembered. “He never complained and never uttered a cross word.” “She’s never heard me curse,” interjected Gus. “I don’t believe in it.”

“No, he is always the perfect gentleman,” she agreed. “But he can’t say the same for me!”

Bob Valentino, (Gus’s nephew): has played a lot of golf with Gus over the years. They’ve been partners at the annual invitational at Marin Country Club in California for ten years or more. Bob has also been a frequent partner with Gus at Palm Aire’s Classic. They have won their flight more often than not in those invitationals. Bob recalls one event at Marin when he and Gus were certainly “in the hunt.” We had just teed off number one and were headed down the fairway to our second shots when we both noticed one of our opponents, whose drive had drifted into the rough, kicking the ball into a better lie. “I’ll take care of this,” Gus said. For the rest of the round, that fellow couldn’t take a shot with-out Gus being right there by him. Every shot, Gus was staring him down. He never said anything to the guy, just watched every shot like a hawk. The poor guy could-n’t hit anything; he went right, he went left, he was in the rough, and he was in the water. Bob and Gus won every point until the last hole, when they finally tied one.

She liked him right from the start, she admits, but she wasn’t about to chase any married man. Besides, she liked his wife, Henrietta, with whom she had a lot in common – for one, Henrietta had manned the pro shop for Gus at Edgewood. It wasn’t until much later after Henrietta died of cancer in 1977 that Gus and Betty became romantically linked. Then, in 1987, old friends from Edgewood prevailed upon Gus and Betty to pay a visit to Palm Aire; they fell in love with the area and the club and decided to move here. They’ve been members for 24 years. For their honeymoon they took a cruise accompa-nied by ten others. That first trip triggered a love for cruising for the two of them, and they have been on their share of cruises since then—including a trip on the QE2, on which they were invited to sit with the captain at his party for fre-quent cruisers. On another cruise, Gus and Betty befriended the captain, a Norseman who happened to love golf.