When talking about Vicksburg golfer Bill Caldwell, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of numbers.

All three of his sons played college golf. He’s got an incredible six holes in one, the last coming just last year, and has won countless tournaments. He’s tied the course record at Vicksburg Country Club, where he still plays three times a week, twice by carding 62s.

He shoots, on average, below his age of 85.

But the number that really sticks out about Caldwell is this: he’s played in 48 Vicksburg Country Club championships, a streak that stretches back to 1962, when John F. Kennedy was president, gas cost 31 cents a gallon and Neil Sedaka, Elvis Presley and Ray Charles were the dominant forces in pop music.

Sports always played a part in Caldwell’s life. Growing up in Beckley, W. Va., which is about 30 minutes north of the Virginia border, he played basketball and baseball in addition to getting his start playing golf at the local country club.

He joined the Army out of high school in 1946 and was sent to South Korea, where he was in the 32nd Infantry Division as part of the forces of occupation following World War II. Already, tensions were simmering that would boil over into the Korean War a few years later. He returned home before the fighting began in 1950.

“I joined the Army so I could get my education,” Caldwell said. “We went on the 38th Parallel and we were on alert all of the time. All we had were M-1 rifles and BARs (Browning Automatic Rifles) and if they would’ve come down through there, they would’ve wiped all of us out. My two buddies who went to Korea with me and went in the reserves, they went back. If I would’ve joined the reserves, I would’ve been over there fighting. When you’re young, you just don’t think about getting killed. You just think about doing your duty and I guess I was fortunate I didn’t have to go back.”

After the Army, Caldwell played basketball and studied at the University of Miami, then left to attend a junior college back in West Virginia the next year. Feeling that college wasn’t the thing for him, he followed a friend of his to Michigan to start work on a Pontiac assembly line. It was a life-changing experience.

“I worked there for a year and realized that I can’t punch this metal on this assembly line for the rest of my life,” Caldwell said. “Being in Korea was bad enough.”

He earned his bachelors in civil engineering at Michigan State and went to work for the Corps of Engineers, living in such diverse locales as Hawaii and North Carolina before taking a job at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center in Vicksburg in 1962.

One of his jobs was helping to check the levees along the Mississippi River. Although Caldwell was around for the big flood of 1973, even he marveled at this spring’s rise.

“The ‘73 flood was something, but this one, wow,” Caldwell said. “I don’t think you can compare them (the 1927, the 1973 and the 2011 floods) because there’s no telling how high it (the ‘27 flood) would’ve gotten if the levees would’ve been there. It’s really hard to imagine. That old river is a very powerful thing.”

Away from the Corps of Engineers, he took up golf in a big way, joining the country club where his son, Steve, served two stints as club pro. He’s won the club championship at Vicksburg Country Club 12 times — the first in 1971 — and been Warren County champion three times, the last coming in 1994.

He’s also won three Senior Amateur Championships and two Corps of Engineers Lower Mississippi Valley Division Championships. His team, comprised of his son Bill Jr., Mike McAlpine and William Youngblood, won at the Wilson World Pro-Am at world-famous Pebble Beach near San Francisco.

His trophy case is filled with silver plates and cups of tournament wins. His scrapbook has swelled with yellowed newspaper cutouts of wins and scorecards of great rounds.

He used to walk the Vicksburg Country Club’s hilly layout until just a few years ago, when knee surgery forced him to take a cart. But he still plays three times a week, thanks to a disciplined regimen of stretching with rubber bands, weight training and cardio that allows him to keep his game honed to a sharp point.

Once, Caldwell was angered by bad shots as his competitive fire burned hotter. But now he’s made a policy of just letting go and moving on to the next shot.

“I don’t get as mad as I once did when I hit a bad shot,” Caldwell said. “I think that you’ve got to be a bit nervous to be really good at this game. That’s something I don’t do anymore.”

But the challenge of hitting the course still appeals to him. It’s as fresh as it was when he first picked up a club.

“When you think you have this game mastered, that’s when it masters you,” Caldwell said.