John Beale, Post-Gazette Gerry Romig, 92, plays golf about three times a week at Alcoma Country Club in Penn Hills. Click photo for larger image.

Words like "modest," "delightful" and "amazing" pretty much describe an Alcoma Ladies Golf Association member who was honored last week, partly because she was soon to turn 92 and partly because team members thought it was time to do something to show their admiration for her.

So when Gerry Romig entered the dining room of the Alcoma Country Club in Penn Hills, fresh from an 18-hole golf match in a drenching rain, team members shouted "surprise" and began a round of hugs, tributes and gift-giving to let their oldest member know how they felt.

"She is an amazing woman and delightful to be around," said team member and friend Carol Ax, of Monroeville.

Ax said the Shaler great-grandmother whose birthday was actually Oct. 1 is an inspiration for younger women and a font of knowledge about golf history and women's role in it.

Romig says she's just a person who likes to play golf and stay involved.

She drives her 20-year-old beige Chevrolet Caprice Classic from her Shaler home to Penn Hills to play 18 holes three times a week during the ladies' season, which runs from April 1 to Nov. 1.

She's a member of the prestigious Women's Golf Association of Western Pennsylvania and joined Alcoma in 1971. She's also a member of the Century Club, an area woman's organization, and its book club.

Until last year, Romig mowed her own grass, and until four years ago, she swam several times a week at a community pool. She still does her own housework and plays bridge weekly.

Romig started playing golf when she was 8 years old after her father, Charles Thomas Charlson, an avid golfer himself, taught his three children the sport.

The early lessons paid off.

Romig was named "most outstanding girl athlete" in her senior year at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., for not only her talent in golf but also for the breathtaking list of other sports she participated in, including swimming, archery, hockey, baseball, soccer and basketball.

Somehow she worked in all of that with a double major in mathematics and language.

"I wanted to be a teacher," Romig said.

But it was not to be.

After graduation she went off to Chicago, where she worked for a publishing house and eventually married Alfred Romig, a schoolmate.

They moved to the Pittsburgh area from Philadelphia where Alfred Romig had worked for the Campbell Co. He had gotten a new job, in the personnel department of Allegheny Ludlum Corp. They had three children, Tom, Gerry Ann and Sharon.

Although they lived in the North Hills, Romig and her husband joined Alcoma because Tom had found a summer job there as a lifeguard and told his parents the members were a friendly, nice group of people.

Romig has been a widow for 20 years. About 15 years ago her daughter, Sharon, died of cancer, leaving her husband and two sons, ages 5 and 13. A year later, the family tragedy was compounded when the boys' father died of a heart attack. Romig and her surviving daughter raised her grandsons.

At her birthday luncheon last week, Romig said the game of golf has come a long way since she started playing those many years ago. Instead of wooden tees, golfers hit the ball off a pile of sand. Sandboxes were provided along the course.

"The [golf] skirts were down to your ankles," Romig said, though she added that they weren't all that uncomfortable.

Her teammates listened, laughed and presented her with, among other things, new golf balls.

"She's been playing with the same ball for three years," Ax kidded.

"She's our idol," Carol Groat, of Murrysville, said.

"For 10 years we didn't even know if she was 80," added Marilyn Haack, a retired Penn Hills High School teacher. Romig's activity level and intelligence belied her age, Haack said.

Romig credits her longevity to a simple formula. "Keep busy and enjoy life. And don't complain too much."