Flying South

94-year-old George Apalakis has ‘retired’ to Florida, but his golfing legacy remains here on the North Shore

By Gary Trask

John Flibotte has seen “the look.” So has Brett Fellows. It appears whenever they travel out of the area and run into someone in the golf industry.

“The person will hear I’m from the North Shore and they’ll ask if I knew George Apalakis,” Flibotte, owner of the North Shore Golf School explains. “And I’ll say, ‘Knew him? Yeah, I know him. I just played a round of golf with him last week.’”

That’s when “the look” emerges. It’s followed by a pause and then a question.

“He’s still alive?” the stranger will ask incredulously.

Yes, George Apalakis, better known as George Apple, is alive and kicking. At 94 years old, he is the 13th-oldest living PGA of America member on the planet. And he carved out his legacy in the game of golf right here on the North Shore, more specifically at Sagamore Spring Golf Club in Lynnfield where he was the head pro for 42 years and the top selling golf equipment retailer in all of New England back in the 1960s and 1970s.

“It doesn’t matter where I go on the east coast, if people find out I’m from the Boston area they want to hear about George,” says Fellows, 33, the Sagamore General Manager who has known Apalakis since he was a kid. “They always say that they bought their first set of clubs from George, or their father or grandfather did. I don’t think there’s anyone that doesn’t know him. He’s one of a kind.”

Indeed, George Apalakis is an original. That’s why May 1 is going to be a somber day at Sagamore. May Day was when Apalakis would annually return from his winter hiatus in Florida. For more than 50 years, he has lived on the grounds of Sagamore in the white house across from the clubhouse. But this year George Apple isn’t coming back from Palm Gardens, Fla. where he is an honorary member at the prestigious The Country Club at Mirasol.

“I’m retiring,” says Apalakis with a smirk, knowing full well that his actual retirement came back in 1988 when he stepped down as a professional at Sagamore, ending a 61-year career in the game of golf. “Most of my friends are in Florida now. I’m comfortable there. This had to happen. Will I miss Sagamore? You betcha. But Florida is where I belong now.”

Apalakis’ last statement is up for debate. The people at Sagamore - everyone from the pro shop attendants to the grounds crewmembers to the golfing regulars - are in agreement that something will be missing from the course this season without the presence of George Apple.

“It’s going to be a lot quieter, that’s for sure,” Fellows says. “It may sound strange that a little 94-year-old man made that much noise, but you always knew when George was around. If he was there, five minutes wouldn’t go by without either him laughing or him making someone else laugh.”

Take this job and shove it

Money is what drew George Apalakis to the game of golf. Thirty-five cents to be exact.

When Apalakis was 11 years old, he had a job delivering newspapers in Stoneham, the town he grew up in. One afternoon, a friend told him that he earned 35 cents in a single day caddying at Unicorn Golf Club.

“That was as much as I made in a week of delivering papers,” he remembered. “I went and told my boss to find himself another paperboy. I started caddying the next day and I’ve been hooked on golf ever since.”

Upon graduation from Stoneham High in 1927 he was promoted to assistant pro at Unicorn. In 1931 he was named assistant pro at a nearby private club, Bear Hill, and four years later he accepted his first head professional job at another local private course, Meadow Brook in Reading.

His new career as a head pro, however, was interrupted just a year later.

“A guy by the name of Adolf Hitler got me a job with the U.S. Army,” cracks Apalakis, who never left the states during his time in the service, spending most of his five years during World War II stationed with the Yankee Division in Miami Beach.

When he got out of the service, Apalakis was determined to get back into the golf industry, with one stipulation. He was done with private golf courses.

“Private courses are a fine place to be, but I wanted something different,” he says. “To me, the public course golfers are the real golfers. Those are the guys who love to play the game. There’s nothing fancy about them. And everybody is different. That’s what I like.”

At the time of Apalakis’ release from the service in 1946, Sagamore was the only daily fee golf course in the area. He was friendly with the Luff family that owned the course so he went to apply for a job. Sagamore didn’t have a pro at the time so they told George the job was his for the taking.

“Fifty-something years later they’re finally getting rid of me,” he says with his classic cackle.

Apalakis’ new job at Sagamore came with an additional responsibility. He was asked to cut back on his teaching lessons and instructed to concentrate on the retail end of the business. He was a natural. Apalakis quickly became the most prolific golf equipment dealer in New England.

“I enjoyed what I did and I had fun with it,” he says when asked what made him a great salesman. “There were an awful lot of people in the area that never had the chance to buy top grade equipment. I made it affordable for them by taking trade-ins, which was something a lot of people never heard of.”

‘Pure and Precise’

One of the main draws to staying in Florida year-round for Apalakis is the fact that he can play golf 12 months a year in warm temperatures. He still plays at least three or four times a week.

When asked if he played nine or 18, he curled his brow at the question.

“Eighteen,” he says with a raised voice, as if he were offended. “If you’re not playing 18, you’re wasting your time.”

Sagamore head pro Steve Vaughn marvels at the way Apalakis swings the club.

“When I give lessons and I want to describe tempo, I pull out a video of George’s swing,” Vaughn says. “He’s incredible with his irons. I’d see him up on the range hitting balls and after a while I would go and talk to him. His 3-iron would have a perfect round circle in the dead center of the clubface about the size of a dime. That’s how pure and precise his swing is.”

Apalakis can still hit his drive straight down the fairway about 150 yards or so. And he can put a draw or fade on the ball whenever he wants. But his putting has suffered over the years, because of his eyesight, so he does pick up from time to time. “It’s all about etiquette with George,” Flibotte says. “He doesn’t want to slow anybody down out there.”

Apalakis claims he was never much of a player in his day.

“I could never hit it like the pros,” says Apalakis, who has always been slight and at 94 he barely stands 5-foot-5. “But I could break 70. I could hold my own.”

His career as a competitive player ended abruptly at the age of 49 when he was diagnosed with cancer. There was bleeding in his right breast. Doctors doubted Apalakis’ survival when they had to operate and remove the breast and his pectoral muscle. Eight days later, the cancer had spread and he was forced to undergo further radical surgery.

“They said I wouldn’t see 50,” smiles Apalakis, whose right arm to this day still has limited mobility because of the surgery. “I guess I fooled’em, huh?”

The routine

Since his retirement as Sagamore’s professional in 1988, Apalakis has been a fixture at the club. His daily regimen was something that Sagamore regulars could set their watches to. At 7:30 a.m. he would arrive at the pro shop where he would begin his day with a scalding cup of black coffee and a bowl of Cheerios. (“If there was an outing going on that day, George would steal their donuts,” Fellows adds with a laugh.)

After finishing breakfast, he would drive his Cadillac, which was parked in his very own reserved parking space, down to Lynnfield Centre to retrieve the mail. Then it was back to the pro shop where he would sip another cup of joe while digesting the Boston Globe, front page to back.

By 10 a.m., a friend, Flibotte for the last five years or so, would pick him up to go play golf. One of his favorite places to play was Green Meadows in Hudson, N.H. After 18 holes and the obligatory lunch (“George always insisted on picking up the check,” Flibotte says), Apalakis would return to Sagamore and hang around until around 6 p.m. That’s when he would saunter back across the street to settle in for the evening with his beloved Red Sox on the tube.

“Not a bad day for a 90-year-old man,” says Fellows, whose family has owned Sagamore since it opened in 1929. “On the days he didn’t play golf, he would hit balls on the range for two or three hours at a time.”

Despite an age gap of more than 60 years, Vaughn, 29, became extremely close with Apalakis since he began his tenure as head pro six years ago. In fact, when Apalakis’ swing doesn’t feel right, he often turns to Vaughn, and vice-versa.

“I feel fortunate to have been able to tap into George’s knowledge of the game,” Vaughn says. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself on rainy days. Because that’s when we would talk for hours. If I ever needed to liven things up, I’d tell George that Nicklaus would have eaten Hogan’s lunch if they played in the same era. That would always get him going because George is adamant that Hogan is the best of all-time.”

This season, Vaughn will have to dial up George’s Florida apartment if he gets bored on rainy days. But if he wants anyone to answer he’ll have to make his call in the early evening. George Apple may have retired, but his Florida routine has a familiar ring to it.

“I’m still playing three or four times a week,” George reported from Florida earlier this spring. “I didn’t come down here to sit around, you know. I don’t care if I can barely get the ball off the ground, I still love being out there.”

And how long does he expect to the routine to stay in place?

“Till the day I die,” he says. “They’re going to have to drag me off the course.”