Meet Bernie Smoot: The 100-Year-Old Golfer Who Still Plays 5 Days a Week

Bernie Smoot is 100, alive for exactly 40 percent of the country’s 250 years.                     

He drives his convertible Mustang 18 miles each way to play golf five days a week. He mostly shoots scores in the low 80s. 

“A man my age is just getting into his prime,” he says. “It’s a hell of a start.” 

The Maryland legend has been playing golf for 74 years, since September 1952 when some buddies asked him to join them at Washington, D.C.’s historic Langston Golf Course.

It cost him $1.50.

Before that, he was drafted into the Army. At age 18, after graduating from high school, Smoot was processed, went through basic training and was deployed to Omaha Beach on France’s Normandy coast on June 16, 1944, to serve in World War II. He returned three years later a changed man, having seen and done things that are incomprehensible.

But don’t call him a hero.

“Don’t say that. I am NOT a hero,” Smoot says. “I was another soldier following instructions like any other soldier. You’re no damn hero. You’re doing your job.”

Thank you for your service?

“If you feel that’s appropriate 80 years later, all right,” he concedes.

During high school, Smoot was hired by a William Hahn store to repair shoes. They told him they’d teach him in six weeks what it took others two years to learn. He went to school from 7 a.m. to noon, worked from 1-to-9 at the store Monday-Friday, and from 9-to-9 each Saturday. Sunday was the only rest day, but most things in his town were closed. He never went to a football game, baseball game or a dance, and became a self-admitted loner.

On Nov. 1, 1943, his 18th birthday, Smoot received a letter from President Franklin Roosevelt telling him that he was to report for military service after graduating from high school. On March 28, 1944, Smoot reported to an elementary school in Georgetown. Three months later he landed in Normandy, where he was stationed until the following March.

Smoot and 4,000 other soldiers were in a submarine for 144 straight days, never once getting off. Across the Mediterranean, through the Atlantic to the Panama Canal. On to Pearl Harbor and ultimately the Philippines. Most of those days the temperatures soared above 100 degrees.

Eventually, Smoot was sent to Okinawa and was there in August 1945, when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing Japan’s surrender to end World War II. 

During the Battle of the Bulge, Smoot was cleaning off an area to set up camp and a landmine exploded, injuring his right leg. The Army was segregated then, and his captain informed him that, as a Black man, he would be refused treatment. A soldier gave him a package of meds and he cared for himself. The injury was never reported on his official record.

“I served under Gen. George S. Patton in the Third Army,” he said. “I did what I was instructed to do. Those were the circumstances of the time and culture. Life never goes backwards. There’s no need to try to heal something that happened 80 years ago. The real thing that counts is, what in the hell are we going to do tomorrow.”

When the war ended, Smoot was ready to go home. But he was sent to Korea and Japan and was part of a regiment of 1,200 soldiers who were tasked with combing the hillsides and fields to collect dog tags from all the dead American service members. 

Smoot’s platoon had to keep dog tags from the different branches separate. He recalls that his squad picked up more than 10,000 Marine tags and 7,000 Army tags.

“Don’t forget, some of these men were killed many months earlier,” Smoot said. “We didn’t have gloves or knives. We had a bayonet and had to dig out dog tags from bodies that had been laying there for many months.

“It wasn't a pleasant duty at all. But somebody had to do it.”

On Feb. 1, 1947, Smoot was sent back to the U.S. and eventually he was discharged, serving nearly three years

A mother, father and two brothers were waiting at home. Smoot opened the front door and walked in, when a little girl wearing a diaper came crawling out of a room. He thought it was a child from either his older or younger brother.

“My mother said, ‘I want you to meet your sister,’” he recalled. She’s 20 years younger and now lives in Williamsburg, Va. Smoot visits her regularly.

When Smoot returned from World War II his high school sweetheart was about to graduate from Howard University with a degree in biology. She wanted to know what he planned to do. The shoe repair job was still available for him, but he went back to Howard University for a couple years. They married in 1951 and 10 years later had one daughter, Cameo, with whom Smoot lives now in Potomac.

A long career with the U.S. Post Office was rewarding during a time when there were massive transportation changes, shifting from railway to highway to air transport. He had a long stint at National Airport and worked nights, weekends and holidays.

“That took my social life, so I started playing golf,” he said.

Smoot went to a sporting goods store and bought, for $15, a raggedy canvas golf bag and five golf clubs. He purchased three Clover golf balls for 39 cents, which was well over his budget. When he showed up for the first time a buddy chided him for not having golf shoes. He found some for $19.95 and wore those for 15 years.

In 1968, Smoot moved to Potomac and had a neighbor who was a surgeon at the suburban hospital. He had worked on a deal for them at a nearby club that had two courses. The monthly rate was cheaper than anywhere else Smoot usually played.

One day, the pro there noticed that Smoot had a good golf swing, even though he played a strong slice. 

“I didn’t know what he was talking about,” Smoot said. “The Golf Channel wasn’t around back then. So I let him work with me a little bit.”

A couple years later, Smoot started breaking 80 on a regular basis. From the early 1970s, until 1992, when his wife became ill, he was an 8 handicap. He retired from the Post Office in 1980 and started to travel more. The first time he played Congressional, he shot 78. He broke 80 during a trip to Pebble Beach. Same at Torrey Pines. He’d travel to Orlando and often play Bay Hill. He was addicted.

From 1992-2011, Smoot did not play much as he cared for his wife until her death. From 2012 until now, he plays as often as he can.

“It’s not too often,” he jokes. “There are seven days in the week, haven’t you heard?”

Smoot has been a mainstay at the University of Maryland Golf Course for decades. The first time PGA of America Member Jeff Maynor met him was 30 years ago when Maynor, the course’s director of golf, and a member were discussing stocks they wanted to purchase during the dot-com craze.

“So, I don’t know you, but if you’re going to invest, invest in land,” Maynor recalls Smoot saying. “It’s the only thing they’ll never get rid of.”

The two have been friends since.

Friend groups are difficult to keep when you’re 100. Smoot has outlived them all over the past 30-plus years. These days he comes out by himself, without a tee time, and jumps in whenever there’s a spot available. If there isn’t a time, he doesn’t get frustrated, he simply heads into the clubhouse and chills for a bit, waiting long enough to go home that his daughter thinks he was actually playing.

“If he comes out and we’re booked solid, he doesn’t get upset,” Maynor said. “I always will find a place for him to play. But he’ll say, ‘you need to make money, otherwise my dues will go up.’”

Like most other important details in his life, Smoot remembers specifics about his game. He’s broken par five times in 74 years (his career low is 68), including four times as a senior, twice when he was 90.

That same year was also difficult. Aside from the two sub-par rounds, he finally realized he could no longer walk while playing.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m getting to be an old man,” he said. “It broke my heart. But I try not to let that get to me.”

Smoot still has so much left to give.

His main golf goal is to break par one more time. He feels deep in his heart that it’ll happen. Shooting a score much lower than his age every time he plays is simply not good enough.

Then there is the wisdom.

“I’ll be sitting in my office, he walks to the door and stands there. I know he has something to say and then he’s off to play,” Maynor said. “But I know if he walks in and sits down, I push my computer away because I know he wants to talk.

“For me, he’s been such an inspiration, not because he’s 100, but because he’s so wise. The things we talk about, life and family, living and doing the right thing. It’s been special for me.”

Maynor is the lead instructor for the PGA HOPE program that he has three times a year at his club. Its goal is to change and save lives of Veterans and Active-Duty Military through the power of golf.

A group of Veterans will be on the range at the University of Maryland Golf Course, and Maynor will pull Smoot over to talk.

“It’s our little dog and pony show, but he loves it,” Maynor said.

“When I speak with the kids in the HOPE group, I remind them that it’s not just a game, it’s a good factor to help your health,” Smoot said. “You’re outside in the fresh air. You’re actively moving, walking and swinging your arms. But the real punchline is you get mental exercise. You cannot play golf without thinking. And it’s repeated 18 times.”

Then Smoot usually leaves the group with one final message.

“You live to play golf,” he says. “But if you’re going to be my age, you’re going to play golf to live.”

Just don’t call him a hero.