Sibling Revelry

Despite A Better-Known Brother, Jim Lehman Has Carved A Singular Identity In Golf
PALM COAST, FLORIDA | Senior amateur golf is all about the personalities and motivations of the players. Some seniors are making up for lost time – for the years when they were working instead of playing tournament golf. Others seem to be measuring their worth in birdies, as if they haven’t already accomplished enough in their lives.

For portions of three consecutive days, I tagged along with Jim Lehman as he competed here in the Society of Seniors Spring Classic. OK, I walked, he rode. The 54-hole event was held at the Conservatory Course at Hammock Beach Resort, a magnificent layout not far from the Atlantic Ocean in north Florida.

Here’s what I learned: Lehman has enough killer instinct to fill an entire football roster. Although he appears to be a mild-mannered golfer, he is actually one tough dude who relishes a one-on-one confrontation with a little round ball.

Lehman does this over and over, as if he can’t get enough. He is a lifelong amateur who loves to wrestle with par in a tournament environment. At the Conservatory Course, the lowest score all week was 69, which was 3-under par. Lehman had one of those 69s, as did Peter DeTemple of Lexington Park, Md., Michael Dunsmore of Elizabethtown, N.Y., Richard Pfeil of Lake Geneva, Wis., and Greg Sanders of Anchorage, Alaska.

Membership in the Society of Seniors is so widespread that Sanders was introduced on the first tee as a re...