Jim Tingley was Long Island's king of aces

September 20, 2009 By MARK HERRMANN
Newsday.com

When Bill Clinton played golf at Nassau Country Club last July, he posed for photos with county executive Thomas Suozzi and other dignitaries. Then, before he headed down the fairway, Clinton turned and motioned to longtime club member Jim Tingley, whom he had heard had made 20 career holes-in-one. The former president said, "I want to have a picture taken with that fella."

That was typical for Tingley, said club manager Frank Keefe, a close friend of the national-class amateur and Army captain who earned five battle stars at Omaha Beach and later carried his clubs in his Jeep across U.S.-occupied Europe. It was quite a life in golf for Tingley, the Glen Cove resident who died of cancer Wednesday at 90.

His son Tom of Groveland, Calif., said Tingley always considered his successful career at Metropolitan Life to be entwined with golf because he got so much business done on the course. That was despite an episode in 1961, when Tingley told his boss he was going to play in the U.S. Amateur Championship at Pebble Beach. The boss said that wasn't a good idea, but Tingley replied, "Look, I can get a job somewhere else." He went, advanced to the match play phase and played a few practice holes with the eventual champion, Jack Nicklaus. The two would become friends years later.

Having met through Nassau member Michael Pascucci, founder of Sebonack Golf Club and owner of Channel 55, Nicklaus and Tingley had a good-natured competition over their aces. When Tingley notched No. 20 two years ago, at 88, Nicklaus wrote a letter acknowledging that they were even, adding that they must keep the contest going.

How does a fellow make 20 aces? First of all, he has to be very good. "He was a scratch golfer for at least 20 years, and a 1- or 2-handicap for 40 or 50 years," his son said. "There was also the volume of golf. He'd play four or five or sometimes six or seven times a week." The younger Tingley said their house was a half-mile from Nassau Country Club. "It's part of my DNA, really," the son said.

All three children took up the game, as did their mother, Dorothy. "I always say she played long enough to hook him," said the couple's daughter, Jill Tingley-Fuller of Westbury. Dorothy, who still lives in the family home, did play for 25 years of their 60-year marriage but didn't care to share her husband's competitiveness. Tingley-Fuller added that her father was such an intense golfer that the first time her husband went out to play with his future father-in-law, Tingley took one look at him and, disapprovingly, said, "Where did you get a swing like that?"

James Tingley, a Jersey City native, took up the game when he started caddying at 9 - despite his father telling him golf was a waste of time. He made his first ace in 1940, before he left for seven years in the Army. He enlisted before World War II and really did hop out of his Jeep to play golf in France and Belgium, his son said.

He later won the Travis Memorial and was the Nassau club champion "a million times," Keefe said. Tingley played in the first U.S. Senior Open in 1981 and in eight U.S. Senior Amateurs. He was the Nassau Country Club's historian, once having saved guest books signed by Bobby Jones, Harry Vardon and Babe Ruth just as a worker was going to toss them in a trash fire. Although he was weak, he still was playing three weeks ago.

Keefe believes golf stories will fill the air at the wakes Sunday, 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. at Dodge-Thomas Funeral Home, Glen Cove. Along with his wife and Tom and Jill, Tingley is survived by another daughter, Gail Simon of Southport, N.C., a sister, Catherine McBride, and three grandchildren.

After an 11 a.m. service at the funeral home Monday, he will have one last trip past Nassau Country Club. At Calverton National Cemetery, his family will bury a few clubs with him, Tingley-Fuller said, "So he can get his 21st hole-in-one."