BUFFALO TWP — Bud Klingensmith was a golfer. Frank Ekas Sr. was a hacker.

The combination was good enough to create Saxon Golf Course 50 years ago.

The pair bought 184 acres of farmland — where the course now sits — in 1958, uncertain as to what to do with it.

"I was looking for some land up this way," Ekas Sr. said. "Bud took half of it and I took half of it.

"He was a golfer who played at Brackenridge and I was a hacker, but I always had aspirations of getting involved in something like this."

The front nine holes of the course opened in 1960. The original 18-hole course was completed by 1962. Ekas Sr. bought out Klingensmith in 1976 and Saxon has been a family business ever since.

Frank Ekas Jr. has been course superintendent for nearly 25 years. He is 50 years old, same age as the golf course.

"My life parallels this place," he said. "I was gathering up balls off the driving range as a little kid and have been working here since.

"Being able to grow up on a golf course, work side-by-side with my father in a business we both love for all these years ... It's priceless."

Ekas Jr.'s wife, Shirley, is secretrary-treasurer of the course. She inherited that job from Ekas Sr.'s wife, Francis — better known as Peaches — when the latter died.

Shirley's daughter, Tancie Plutyk, works in the clubhouse. Granddaughter Jenna Plutyk and a nephew, Andrew Olczak, work there as well.

"We live in back of the course, just off the No. 7 hole," Shirley Ekas said. "As a family, there's nothing else we'd rather be doing."

Ekas Sr. will turn 87 in July and still mows grass on the course. His son gets up at 5 a.m. every day, makes sure everything at the course is working properly, then starts mowing grass himself.

The greens are cut seven days a week.

"The last time I played golf was three years ago," Ekas Jr. said. "My big concern is keeping this place in shape. I'm on the course all day."

Ekas Sr. credits three men — Earl Kennedy from Butler Country Club, Clarence Norsic from Brackenridge and Jack Diller from Hillcrest Country Club — for helping him get the golf course started.

"I knew how to move dirt and that was about it," Ekas Sr. said. "Those guys really helped me out with the business side of things. I doubt I would have made it without them."

A tornado ripped through the property in 1985, leveling approximately 30 trees and leaving debris all over the place.

"It took forever to clean up," Ekas Sr. said. "But with trees already knocked down anyway, we cleared out the rest and put in another nine holes."

To celebrate its 50th anmiversary, Saxon is offering golf at its original prices — along with charging a dime for hot dogs and a nickel for a Pepsi — from May 24-28.

Many of the tee times are already taken up for that week, but a few nine and 18-hole slots remain available.

"We've got a great crew here," Ekas Jr. said. "If I asked these people to come out at 3 a.m. and stay until midnight, they'd do it. That's why we're successful."