MSIS Member Profile: Ray Mantle

Meet......

Ray Mantle
Queen's Harbour Yacht & CC

Born: 1938; Painesville, OH

Home: 2nd fairway, Queen's Harbour Yacht & Country Club, Jacksonville, FL since 2003.

Veteran: US Army, Military Intelligence (1965-67); Counterintelligence Dept, Ft Holabird.

Education: BA/BSBA, Kent State University LLB, New York University Law School.

Occupation: Semi-retired attorney with an office in Neptune Beach, rmantlelaw.com.

Ray's career included a year as assistant counsel to Governor Nelson Rockefeller, two years in the US Army, and 36 years with NYC law firms specializing in securities, M&A, intellectual property, and related fields.

Family: Ray and Judith Ann were married in 1967. They have three daughters and three grandsons.

How long a golfer: Since the age of 66! Ray is a regular walking golfer and is "fast enough to stay ahead of a foursome in carts." Last year, Ray played more than 100 rounds at over 40 courses.

Ray and Judy volunteer as FSGA and USGA tournament committee members and are working to become FSGA-certified Rules officials.

Ray believes there is a great need for committee members and rules officials since the FSGA sponsors more golf tournaments each year than the next two or three states combined. He notes that Florida has 43 FSGA-certified rules officials; only four or five live in North Florida.

To learn more, go to the FSGA website at http://fsga.org/ and click on Volunteers.

Ray emphasizes that we play by just 34 rules. Some of the rules pertain to issues about the ball, flagstick, hole dimensions, etc., but there are over 1,500 published decisions interpreting and applying the rules to various situations. To be an FSGA-certified rules official, you need to attain a score of 85 or higher on a test of 150 questions over 180 minutes. The correct answer often turns on a single word. "It's partly a matter of test-taking as well as knowing the rules. No responsible official would ever make a decision in the 1.2 minutes per question allowed on the test. But that's the standard we have to meet to become FSGA-certified Rules Officials."