Neither rain, nor biting cold, nor sleet, nor oppressive heat kept Richard Lewis from his appointed rounds — and the record book.
The 64-year-old Lewis entered the Guinness Book of World Records for playing and walking the most rounds of golf in a single calendar year when he completed his 600th round on Sunday. Lewis, however, had to delay his momentous round a few hours as the TPC Four Seasons Resort Las Colinas course in Irving, Texas, which hosts the annual PGA Tour’s HP Byron Nelson Championship, warmed up.
‘It was 25 degrees at 6 a.m. When we teed off at 11 and it was 33 degrees, with 10 mph winds and a chill factor of 27,’ Lewis said in a phone interview. ‘It was a tough day for golf. You can play in the heat. But I’ll tell you, no matter what your skill level is, unless you’re a touring pro, playing in the cold just makes everything so tough.’
Lewis, a member of the Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas at Las Colinas, played in everything Mother Nature dealt up this year — and will polish off 2010 by playing 36 holes on Monday and Tuesday, 54 each of the following two days and 18 on New Year’s eve. That would give him 611 rounds for the year — and 11,000 holes of golf (counting the two he played before being called off the course because of severe weather conditions).
‘Unless they pull me off the course — and lightning is the only thing that will stop me — I will get in 611 rounds,’ Lewis said.
‘I would say,’ Four Seasons Club Manager Rob Cowan said, ‘nobody in the 27-year history of the Four Seasons has gotten more out of his membership than Richard.’
Cowan is most likely right. Lewis said when he retired last year he told his fellow workers that he’d play golf every day.
‘And they said there was no way I’d play every day, because I’d go on vacations and I’d have bad days,’ Lewis said.
Off to a slow start the first two months on this year — ‘I got behind the 8-ball,’ he said — Lewis was razzed by his friends and then became inspired. Bent on playing 365 rounds, Lewis started playing 36 a day, sometimes 54 a day to catch up. When he got back on schedule, 400 sounded like a ‘nice, good round’ number. Then a fellow golfer asked what the record was for playing the most golf in a year. Lewis discovered the record to be held by Leo Fritz of Youngstown, Ohio, who played 10,550 holes — or just over 586 rounds — in 1998. So 600 became Lewis’ new ‘nice, good round number.’
Playing 36 nearly every day — unless he played 54 — Lewis kept walking toward the end of his golf rainbow, fueled by at least one pizza a day he ate and hundreds of protein shakes he drank while playing. The last time he didn’t play 18 hole was March 21 when it snowed in Dallas. On Sunday, he played golf for the 285th consecutive day.
‘It was 100% effort,’ Lewis said. ‘My girlfriend (Debbie Shaw) has been so supportive. She did extra chores around the house that I normally do. By the time I got home some days I’d just eat and go to sleep.
‘There were no vacations, Christmas got delayed, Thanksgiving got delayed. My feet never hurt, my hands never hurt, my back never hurt. All that walking didn’t hurt me. When you are walking, you don’t even think about it. You are chasing a little white ball.’
At an estimated 6.2 miles per round, Lewis has walked more than 3,700 miles chasing that little white ball — or, he estimated, 7 million steps. Although he never was injured, he’s lost 33 pounds since the first round.
During his chase, he averaged 78.48 strokes per round on the two courses he played — the TPC and the private Cottonwood Valley at the resort. He shot 86 in the brutal conditions during his 600th round, and posted 71s on each course for his lowest rounds of the year.
‘I love golf because it’s a challenge,’ Lewis said. ‘You can play the same course every day and it’s different every day. One day you’re hitting it straight, the next day you’re hitting it left, the next day you’re hitting it right. There are various weather conditions. Nothing is the same.
‘No matter how good you are — and I got down to a 3 handicap — you just want to get better. It’s a challenge you can’t beat.’
‘I hope the word gets out and somebody challenges it,’ he said. ‘And I want to meet that person. I know there is somebody out there that can beat me.’
