Golfers and Poker Players

By Bob Burchette, Staff Writer
News & Record

AMESTOWN - Golfers Poker - Paul Gardner's addiction to golf began when he was about 15 and lasted for at least 63 years - until his hip ached so badly that he couldn't swing a club.

But even as his playing days waned after a hip operation in 1995, some of his best days were spent hanging around the Jamestown Park Golf Club chatting with friends and gazing across the rolling land where he recalled so many good times. Gardner also got to visit with son Jay Gardner, now 54, the Jamestown golf course superintendent.

Gardner, 88, who died April 8 at his Jamestown home, was remembered fondly as an avid golfer. "When he was still working at American Oil Co. in Greensboro, he would play every weekend, Friday or Saturday, even on Sunday. When he retired (in 1977 after 29 years), he played about every day," said son Jay Gardner of High Point.

"He had been playing for a long time before we were married in 1940," his wife, Zula Gardner, said.

"He had played every weekend since I'd known him. I always was a golf widow but I never knew much about the game."

"Most of the time that I can remember, Dad would shoot in the mid-70s to the low 80s," Jay said.

Along the way, he had a few rounds even better. After the first of two hip surgeries, Gardner's game was never the same. His scores took a natural course, going up faster than his age.

During his retirement, he played regularly with Shirley McKarem, 68, of Jamestown. "He was a lot of fun to play with; just a wonderful gentleman who was always talking about his family. He'd get such a kick out of me beating him."

Gardner's brightest day on the golf course came Feb. 12, 1997, when he got a hole-in-one on the fourth hole - a 125-yard drive - at Jamestown Park.

That became a redeeming moment for his worst day playing golf several years earlier at Longview Golf Club - on hole No. 7, a par-3, Jay said. "He hit his tee shot into the lake, and he hit the second shot in the lake, too. Then he walked over and dumped all of his balls, about two dozen of them, into the lake."

Gardner's friends and neighbors could always be sure of one thing - they'd get plenty of tomatoes when the juicy delights ripened in his huge garden.

For as long as most people had known Gardner, he always set out about 5,000 tomato plants each year. And he never sold a tomato. He gave them away.

"They're out there; you'll have to pick 'em," he would say.

But sooner or later, he'd relent and pick some of those Big Boys, Marglobes or Rutgers and take then to elderly folk who weren't able to pick.

His love for tomatoes came naturally. His parents, Jessie and Ella Gardner, had run a tomato cannery on that same land. Gardner, a 1939 graduate of Jamestown School, never wandered far from the farm.

When he and the former Zula Austin were married, "we lived in a Quonset hut on the back side of the farm, right near where we live now,'' she said.

While still living in that old military hut, Gardner had a brick building, about 20 feet by 15 feet, constructed nearby. That's where his biggest passion - yes, even bigger than his love for golf or raising tomatoes - came to life almost every Friday night for as long as Zula can remember.

That building was his poker room. "His true love was playing poker," Jay said. Ten years after the poker room was built, Zula had a roomy brick house to move into - built onto the side of the poker room.

About eight of his poker-playing friends would arrive about sundown on Fridays and play until daylight on Saturday, Jay said. Five-card stud and seven-card stud poker were the favorite games. "And if he'd see some guy losing more than he could afford, he asked him to get out of the game," Jay said.

Some of the players also were known to have a few swigs of white lightning as the night wore on, Jay said.

Gardner's family, which also includes Jay's sister, now Pat Groom of Gastonia, "gave him his own personal set of clay poker chips with his initials on them," his son said.

A memorial table at the funeral home during the wake for Gardner reflected his passions. On the table were two of Gardner's favorite golf clubs, a golf ball, a photo of him and some of his golfing pals, and an ace of spades and an ace of hearts. A green clay poker chip, engraved with JPG, was lying atop each ace.

Gardner was still on top of his poker game until 2002, his wife said.

Jay remembers the story of Edward Williams coming to collect "something over $12,000" that he charged to build the house: Gardner asked Williams to help pull the cement slab steps away from the Quonset hut.

"My father reached under the steps and pulled out a jar and counted out cash for the house," Jay said. "This house was built by playing cards." As much as Gardner loved golf, it never matched his poker skills.

Contact Bob Burchette at 883-4422, Ext. 234, or bburchette@news-record.com