By Kirk Kern

Lone Stephens has spent her entire professional career in the medical field, first as an x-ray technician and then as a physicians assistant.

So it’s only natural that she gravitated to the game of golf. But while working, she wasn’t able to really give the game its due, having to support her family.

Retirement, however, is another story.

Lone Stephens putts during competition at the Mesquite Senior Games. (Submitted photo)

Stephens, who lives in Hurricane, Utah, has been a regular participant in the Mesquite Senior Games along with playing in other senior events.

Turing 82 in August, she says she does very well in her age group.

“Of course, there aren’t a lot of people in my age group,” she said. “The first year, there was only one other person. The next year, there was two.”

Stephens first picked up the game at age 30 when she lived in Twin Falls, Idaho. She scored her first eagle at the Snake River Golf Course and she was hooked.

“I was married to a doctor who was a golf fanatic,” she said. “He taught me how to golf. I would have loved to have been out there a lot more, but I had to work.”

When she graduated from University of Utah as a physicians assistant, she would go to an annual convention in Mesquite and always signed up for the golf tournament.

During her professional career, she spent 23 years  working in Saipan, one of the Northern Mariana Islands near Guam. The islands are a commonwealth of the United States. She would do a two-year contract, then come back to the states for a while and then do another two-year contract.

“I loved it there,” she said. “I learned how to scuba dive and went to the beach every weekend.”

She regrets not having given her golf game a little more time, though. Her son-in-law is a high school golf coach and he’s worked with her from time to time.

“It was one of those things I wished I had gotten started on when I was young,” she said. “But I just didn’t have the opportunity.”

She’s looking forward to the next round of competition in the Mesquite Senior Games in the fall.

“I got involved with the Mesquite Senior Games because it was an great opportunity,” she said. “It would be fun. They are wonderful, nice people.”