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100-year-old man plays golf on his birthday

By CHUCK CURRY (Contact)

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Photo by CHUCK CURRY / Banner

Shepard Schwartz finishes his first hole on Tuesday with a six-foot putt.

On his 100th birthday, Shepard Schwartz, a resident at Bentley Village in North Naples just south of the Lee County line, played a round of golf.

While Mr. Schwartz plays golf twice each week at Bentley Village, it is worth nothing that he was born before either World War had happened or the Great Depression became reality and not philosophy and other life-changing events, such as the stock market crash of 1929, the Cold War, the Bay of Pigs and the conflict in Vietnam, were history in the making.

Today, Mr. Schwartz enjoys a couple of rounds of golf each week at the Bentley Village par-3 course (he moved to Southwest Florida approximately 19 years ago) and believes he is “fortunate” to have reached his century milestone.

Schwartz, whose wife passed nearly a generation ago, has a daughter, two step-granddaughters and a great-grandchild.

He was born in Tennessee and pursed a managerial career after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, following his prep-school days.