Sarge is an old man now, his face deeply lined and tanned from a lifetime spent under a summer sun next to a flagstick.

These days he likes to play his rounds of golf quickly.

Three hours is the optimal amount of time Sarge will spend on18 holes.

Yet he still shoots in the low to mid-70s.

“He’s amazing,” says Fred Larrison, one of his playing partners at Willow Creek Golf Course in Des Moines.

Sarge drives the ball 240 yards. “But around the green is his strength,” Larrison says.

Sarge is 85 years old.

In 1956, at the age of 40, Sargio Fontanini of Des Moines became the first amateur Iowan to play in the Masters.

The Sunday before the tournament began, Sarge shot a 69. Ben Hogan, playing one group ahead, shot a 70.

Sarge was one of eight amateurs across the nation that qualified to play. He still has his invitation.

The white piece of paper has yellowed at the edges, but Sarge’s wife of 54 years, Bernice, still brings out the invite when company asks for it.

It is a daunting, hallowed thing to look at.

“The Board of Governors of the AUGUSTA NATIONAL GOLF CLUB cordially invites you to participate in the Nineteen Hundred and Fifty-Seven Masters Tournament to be held at Augusta, Georgia the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh of April.”

Robert Tyre Jones, Jr.

President

Sarge says Bobby Jones, the Masters course designer and the greatest amateur golfer of all time, was limited to a wheelchair by 1956.

“He was a swell guy,” Sarge says of Jones while keeping one eye on the final round of the Masters. He paid for a meal with the amateurs.

And then he’d ask, “Who the hell is going to buy me a drink?”

Thursday there was a tornado warning and Friday Sarge says it “rained like heck.” He shot a 79 and 83 and missed the cut at Augusta the first year it was enforced.

Sarge only played Augusta National four times, but “I’ve never forgotten.”

Sitting with Sarge, watching the Masters below a painting of the 12th green that’s wider than the TV, is like listening to an older, wiser Ken Venturi describe the course.

On the 13th green, if Retief Goosen would have hit it left it would have stayed up. On the tee, you gotta draw that right back, close to the trees hugging the left side of the fairway.

And what’s the problem with guys driving through the fairway on 15? It’s so wide.

The 18th tee is like shooting through a chute and with the approach shot left you gotta hit it hard if you’re gonna make the green, unlike Jose Marie Olazabal who put it in the right bunker.

Sarge’s voice is gravelly, like cigar smoke has spent some serious time hanging out in his esophagus.

A cigar is always, or nearly always, in his mouth, yet he has never smoked one.

“I’ve never seen him light a cigar in 20 years,” Bob Boxwell says, another playing partner at Willow. “I’ve never seen him smoke anything.”

On the golf course, he’ll put the cigar on the grass while he’s hitting, then return it, still unlit, to his lips where he’ll suck on it some more.

Sunday, hungry with about three holes of the Masters left to watch, Sarge sucked on the open end, the tobacco end, of the cigar for a while.

“It’s just a habit,” he reasons.

So is playing good golf.

He learned caddying at Wakonda Country Club in Des Moines – “and of course, it’s a tough course,” he says.

He won the Des Moines City Championship four times when he was younger; sometimes one of his five children would caddy.

Regardless of season, his friends say Sarge shoots in the 70s.

“He could probably play in the super senior [tour],” Larrison says.

It’s easy to see why.

Sarge could pass for a man a third his age.

At 5-10 and slender, he walks without a slumped back or small steps.

In fact, he walks four miles a day, morning and night, at the mall.

He doesn’t walk the course any more. Hasn’t in ten years.

After all, Sarge is an old man. Men his age need all the help they can get playing golf.

Paul Kix is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Hubbard. He is sports senior reporter for the Daily.