Golf On Mt. Everest? One USGA Member Did

Robert Vaughn Hits Three Balls At Summit, Donates Makeshift 4-Iron To USGA Museum


April 24, 2008

By David Shefter, USGA

Somewhere amongst the glacial ice and rocks that form the world’s highest mountain peak lie three golf balls. Each were struck in rarified air, 29,035 feet above sea level with a makeshift 4-iron last May as part of one man’s dream to reach the summit of Mount Everest. It’s a feat that fewer than 2,500 individuals have accomplished since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay navigated the terrain 55 years ago.

Robert Vaughn, a 52-year-old oil and gas executive from Dallas, Texas, had always thought about ascending the world’s tallest peak since he first began climbing mountains in the early 1980s. It started in ’83 when he reached the summit of Pico de Orizaba in Mexico (higher than 17,500 feet) and Denali/MountMcKinley in Alaska (18,850 feet).

The golf aspect came as an afterthought. In fact, Vaughn never planned on carrying a club with him on the 10-week odyssey to Nepal last spring. But when friend Bill Farmer presented him with a special club a few days before the 10,000-plus mile trip, Vaughn stuck it in his luggage, purchased a sleeve of balls at the Dallas airport and forged ahead with a plan to hit the balls if he reached the summit.

And a few months after returning home from the successful excursion, the club made its way from Texas to the USGA Museum in Far Hills, N.J., where it will be displayed when the Museum reopens on June 3. Eventually, the Mount Everest 4-iron will join the Space Shuttle putter and Alan Shepard’s 6-iron “Moon Club” as part of a unique exhibit within the Arnold Palmer Center for Golf History. Shepard hit two golf balls on the moon with the 6-iron as part of the Apollo 14 expedition in 1971. Meanwhile, astronaut Brian Duffy was presented his putter by NASA trainer Tim Terry on the Space Shuttle Discovery’s mission in October 2000. Those implements were donated to the USGA as well.

“We are thrilled to add this special club to the world-class collection of the USGA Museum, for it helps us tell the story of one of the most unique aspects of the game,” said Dr. Rand Jerris, the USGA’s director of the Museum and Archives. “Like the clubs that Alan Shepard and Brian Duffy used in space, Robie Vaughn’s Mount Everest club shows us that golfers are so passionate about the sport that they find ways to take it with them wherever they might be – even in the most extreme environment on top of the world.”

USGA Member Robert Vaughn scaled Mt. Everest in May 2007. (Photo courtesy of Robert Vaughn)

Vaughn, who has been a USGA Member since 1997, did have some reservations about carrying a heavy club in his backpack. The journey from Base Camp in Nepal to the summit of Mount Everest takes six weeks. Climbers have to stop and get acclimated to the altitude along the way and some never reach the top. Vaughn’s first attempt was aborted when his feet got too cold.

Fortunately, his second try went off without a hitch. The 11-hour journey from Camp 4 (26,000 feet) to the top ended at 7 a.m. on May 18, where his group was treated to a gorgeous morning with temperatures hovering at minus-18 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of all his gear, Vaughn could not make a full swing, but despite breathing heavily from the dearth of oxygen at that altitude, he managed to tee up the golf balls, hitting two toward Tibet and the third in the direction of Nepal.

“The air is so thin up there,” said Vaughn, a 10.6 handicapper who plays out of Brook Hollow Golf Club in Dallas. “I was amazed how fast the ball came off the clubface. Who knows how far they went. The two I hit over toward Tibet had about a 10,000-foot drop.”

The club actually came from an old set of Farmer’s wife. Farmer also purchased a grip and a ball retriever, which would be used for the shaft. A local Dallas club fitter then assembled the club. Vaughn left with the club on March 29 and returned June 4.

“I just put it in my backpack and forgot about the [extra] weight,” said Vaughn.

The climb itself, however, is the true challenge. To prepare for the trip, Vaughn climbed Aconcagua on the Argentina/Chile border in January of 2007. At 22,834 feet, Aconcagua is the tallest peak in the Western and Southern hemispheres.

“It reinforced if I really wanted to go to Everest or not,” said Vaughn.

Having endured that test, Vaughn was ready to tackle the big one. With help from expedition leader James Williams and Sherpa Nima Tasha, Vaughn tackled each step with aplomb. One climb featured a 3,000-foot frozen waterfall known as Khumbu Ice Falls, which Vaughn described as walking through a busy downtown area while pieces of buildings are falling off. Lengthy stops are made along the way. Base Camp stands at 17,500 feet. Camp 1 is 19,000 feet, Camp 2 is 21,000 feet, Camp 3 stands at 23,000 feet and Camp 4 is 26,000 feet. Along the way, Vaughn filed daily blogs that are featured in an online diary at exploradus.com.

“To me it was almost like an incredible vacation,” said Vaughn. “This was a childhood dream. It’s just always seemed like that it was just over the horizon or just out of my grasp, so I never really took the first step toward actually trying it. My goal wasn’t really to summit. My goal was to have fun and do the best I could on a minute-to-minute, day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis.

“It’s a lot like playing a competitive round of golf. You just focus on one shot at a time and you can’t think about the bad things that have happened to you in the past or what might happen to you on the next hole. You just have to have fun and do the best you can right there and then.”

While it took weeks to ascend the mountain, Vaughn only needed a few days to get back to Base Camp. In fact, he dropped 10,000 feet in two days.

“When I first got to Base Camp in early April, I could hardly move around,” he said. “And when I came off the summit back down to Base Camp at 17,500 [feet], it felt like I was on the beach. Acclimazation is an amazing thing.”

 Such daredevil acts are hardly new for Vaughn, who in 1998-99 competed on the World Cup circuit as part of the U.S. skeleton national team. Skeleton is an Olympic sport that is similar to luge – it is staged on the same ice track – but instead of lying on your back feet first, competitors lay face first on a special single-rider sled. For the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Vaughn served as the team leader for the three-man, two-woman squad that took home two gold medals and a silver. Prior to that, Vaughn completed eight marathons and finished the Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon in 1989.

 Later this summer, after the USGA Museum reopening, Vaughn is planning on taking his family – wife, daughter and son – on a trek up Mount Kilamanjaro, the tallest peak on the African continent.

 “That’s pretty much a walk-up,” said Vaughn. “It’s still 19,000 feet. It will be a good workout.”

 Without swinging a club.

 David Shefter is a USGA staff writer. E-mail him with questions or comments at dshefter@usga.org.