Bev Hargraves seems to always be in contention, and after so many top-10 finishes in senior amateur events, the 73-year-old started thinking: What might happen if he teed it up in more tournaments?
To start 2024, Hargraves sat down with his wife and pitched an idea. He wanted to play more tournaments to see if the extra starts would launch him to the top of the Golfweek National Senior Rankings for players in his age group (70-74 years old) and land him Legends Player of the Year honors.
It would be a commitment, for sure.
Hargraves still has an insurance agency back home in Little Rock, Arkansas, and works eight to 10 hours a day. He underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery in 2021 and has been battling prostate cancer for the past few years. The latter necessitated him front-loading his competition schedule a bit this year.
Shortly after he competes in this week’s Golfweek Desert Showdown at Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort, Hargraves will begin a 45-day stretch of radiation treatment that will take him off the national senior amateur circuit.
“What I want to do is to see how I play in Las Vegas and if I can possibly wrap up the Player of the Year,” Hargraves said.
Hargraves won his age division earlier this year at the Golfweek Player of the Year Classic, giving him a huge boost in his quest. He also won the Legends title at the Low Country Senior and tied for second at the U.S. Senior Challenge, a state team event for which he serves on the board.
Golfweek National Senior Amateur Rankings
All of that has Hargraves sitting atop the Legends rankings, with a 1,120-point lead on Don Donatoni of Malvern, Pennsylvania. Expect Hargraves to keep a close eye on the standings even as he undergoes radiation. He has considered the possibility of suspending treatment to squeeze in one more tournament in December.
“If I need to, I’ll do it.”
Through the years, Hargraves’ competitive nature clearly hasn’t changed much, and neither has his game.
“Historically my driving has been the best part of my game,” he said. “I’m not long but usually in the fairway. The part that helps me in every tournament is my short game, chipping and putting, which has always been good.”
The latter he still credits to Paul Runyan, a World Golf Hall of Famer for whom he had the good fortune to caddie during the Mohawk Open, a pro-am played in the 1960s at his home golf course, Helena (Arkansas) Country Club.
“He was a short game guru and he’s the one who kind of taught me different techniques on chipping and putting,” Hargraves said of Runyan.
Hargraves first came to the game as a caddie at 9 years old and began playing two years later. He never had a lesson but observed while he caddied. He took advantage of the opportunities that came to him, like a front-row seat to Runyan.
Regardless, Hargraves’ golf resume is full. He has won more than 80 individual titles in Arkansas, served in various leadership roles in his state association, regional associations and even the USGA (notably, Hargraves was a member of the U.S. Mid-Amateur Committee from 1991 to 2006). He has traveled domestically and abroad to compete in tournaments.
Until this year’s run at player-of-the-year honors, Hargraves, who played collegiately for the University of Arkansas in the 1970s, has typically played just five or six national tournaments a year. As he has gotten older, golf has become the sport in which he remains physically competitive. As a younger man, he liked to compete in baseball, football or anything else that satisfied his natural competitive drive.
When Hargraves turned 45, he turned his focus to playing in the U.S. Mid-Amateur, and he qualified for five of those. He attempted qualifying for the U.S. Senior Amateur at age 56 and has played six of those. He last qualified for a U.S. Senior Am in 2017.
“One thing I do want to do, and it will be hard to do, is qualifying for the U.S. Senior Am,” he said of goals that still remain on the table.
As always, Hargraves continues to seek out the highest level of competition. It’s his “why.”
“I like to compete against the best,” he said.
