Dorothy Kaiser made a decision with lasting benefits when she married for the second time in 1970, and it wasn’t her choice of husbands (although he worked out, too).
“I decided I did not want to be a golf widow,” said Kaiser, who married an avid golfer. “I just made up my mind I would learn how to play golf also.”
Kaiser said it wasn’t hard to learn.
“I didn’t say that I was an excellent golfer. I just enjoyed doing it.”
She then went to work in the accounting department at Learjet and joined the Business Women’s Golf League. Kaiser no longer has the job, but she’s still in the league.
“The golf course girls call me Dottie,” she said.
They seem to adore her.
“Playing golf with my hero!” friend and fellow golfer Tina Leep wrote on Facebook in early June.
“Dottie Kaiser turns 92 years young this week! I want to be her when I grow up!”
The league has women in their 20s through, thanks to Kaiser, their 90s.
All women, working or not, are welcome to join to play golf weekly and then participate in monthly tournaments.
The league, which has about 50 members and plays at MacDonald Golf Course, was started in 1982 by and for working women who weren’t able to participate in morning golf leagues.
Now, there is morning play in addition to evening on Tuesdays, and there also are a couple of golf trips a year, a championship tournament and, sometimes, a tournament for members and guests. For more information, check www.bwglladysgolfwichita.com.
Though she doesn’t play quite as well as she used to, Kaiser took third in her division at a June tournament.
“For an old lady, that’s pretty good,” she said.
That wasn’t the surprising part, though.
Kaiser said she normally plays nine holes on Tuesday evenings, so for the tournament, she said she “was real surprised that I could play 18 holes.”
“I was really dragging my tracks when I came in.”
Still, she said, “I was with a group of girls I fully enjoy.”
Leep met Kaiser through the league about 15 years ago.
“I just thought she was amazing,” Leep said. “She just always has a positive attitude.”
Kaiser said most of the players do.
“The women are always encouraging everybody when they’re playing,” she said. “Even things that aren’t pertaining to golf, we talk over things.”
Though she’s the oldest in the group, Kaiser finds herself in a cheerleading role for others who may be thinking their golfing days are over.
“Any time I see somebody that has decided that they’re going to quit, I encourage them” to keep going.
Leep called Kaiser “a lovely lady” and a spry one, too.
“She plays rain or shine … I just think she’s an inspiration that she just keeps going.”
Leep likes that Kaiser wants to participate in life and enjoy it to its fullest.
“I’ve heard her tell people that this is a game that they can enjoy their whole life and to not worry so much about how you do and just enjoy the game and being with people.”
Kaiser is active in other ways as well. She has four children and lots of grandchildren and great grandchildren. She quilts, is active in church, does her own housework and yard work — minus her grandson handling the mowing — and walks with friends. She’s also treasurer of the Sunview Improvement District and handles the bookkeeping for the organization.
Along with her daughter, Kaiser also does arthritic water classes three days a week “to keep my bad parts of my body moving like it needs to.”
Golf, of course, helps with that, too.
But it’s the camaraderie that really keeps teeing it up. “They’re just a good group of people . . . They keep me feeling young.”
