Former Golf Pro Jim Stephenson is a new blogger on the North Fort Myers Neighbor Web site, inviting your golf questions.

The North Fort Myers Neighbor Web site now hosts golf professional Jim Stephenson in his own blog, and he is looking for questions from golfers in the community to help improve their game.

He will also host a live golf clinic Saturday, Nov 21, to give tips in person.

Stephenson actually started playing golf when he was in the service, in Fort Bliss. He was a personnel management supervisor in the Army.

“It was a big word for being in charge of desk clerks,” he said. “That position afforded me a lot of free time after duty.”

He admires Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.

Andrea Galabinski Golf blogger Jim Stephenson with pictures of himself and and his wife, who were high school sweethearts who married years later. He keeps pictures in his wallet of their high school days and wedding.

“They made the game popular,” he said. “I was bitten by the bug, so to speak, and I took golf up then in the Army.”

He took a few lessons and then started playing in 1961. In 1964, he won his flight in the Indianapolis City Amateur and made the top 10 percent.

“I was very proud of that,” he said. “Most of the fellows had been playing golf all their lives.”

He decided to take up golf as a profession and started that career in 1967. He then pursed a career with Wonder Bread but always liked teaching golf.

Now retired in North Fort Myers, he gives lessons and advice on the Neighbor Web site. (Go to northfortmyersneighbor.com and see “Golf Talk.”)

“I’m looking for more questions from people in the community about golf,” he said. Those can be from beginners and experienced golfers.

He will also be giving a live clinic Saturday, from 1 to 3 p.m., at Good Shepherd United Methodist Church, which is located at 2951 Trail Dairy Circle.

For $25 – which is a donation to go to church charities, he’ll first do a two-hour basic fundamental lesson.

“After the lesson I will give participants a lesson at no additional charge,” he said.

After that lesson he goes home and prints out what they’ve done and mails it to the individual.

“This will be more fourth clinic,” he said. “We’ll have put through about 100 people through total, so we will raise about $2,500 for church charities.”

He’s a very active member of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in North Fort Myers, along with wife, Judy. He had an interesting tale to tell about their marriage.

He said he “re-met” his wife at a high school reunion in 2002.

“We went steady in high school in 1958 and then we didn’t see each other for 44 years,” he said. “We went our separate ways.”

He married another woman and then was widowed. Judy had been living here in North Fort Myers when they met again.

“We met again at an all-class reunion,” he continued. “We fell in love again.”

For the wedding date, she picked March 20, 2004.

“I asked her why she picked that particular date and she said it was the first day of spring – and it represents a new beginning,” he said.

He is now in the process of writing a book, which he hopes to have published next year.

“It’s basically for (golfing) beginners,” he said.

For both blog questions and to sign up for the clinic, readers can e-mail him at jim-judy@comcast.net or call him at 656-4692 or 339-0137.