Golf is a passion for Dr. Jim Ashcraft.
You’ll often find him here at Yegen Golf Club in Billings either playing or helping other, like the kids in summer golf camp, learn the game.
It’s a sport he got serious about late in life at the suggestion of his brother.
“He says I know you are going to drive your wife nuts unless you find something to take up your mind, so come down and we will get you started on how to play golf.”
Since then, Jim has become one of the top players in Yegen’s senior leagues and even got his first hole-in-one this year.
But that’s not all he’s known for.
“Jim has been, like I said, fantastic for the league. And one of the most active and most fun guys to play with,” says Chuck Willkom, one of the organizers of the league.
Jim’s book “Yanks, Shanks, and Mulligans” includes his many stories about playing in the senior golf league. He donated much of the sales to a member of the league who was battling cancer,
“He’s very kind, very good storyteller. Likes to tell stories. And is always very helpful when you are playing golf as well,” says Wade Freiboth, a senior league golfer.
Jim has written five books about his experiences on the golf course and his time spent working as a country doctor in eastern Montana.
“I’m not an author of books. I’m a scribe. The people made the stories and I just tell about the experiences from my point of view,” he says.
Jim grew up on Billings South Side overcoming the odds to become a doctor.
He spent most of his professional career in Sidney and has a lot of interesting stories to tell—like the time he was called out for what he thought was to deliver a baby.
When he got there he was told that Mary was in the barn.
“I said Mary is in the barn? And there it is. The calf is there and the rancher says to me, you are a doctor aren’t you? You deliver babies, right? Yeah. He said well pull, dammit, pull,” he laughs.
Jim helped bring a lot of humans into the world, too - 1,752 to be exact.
He and his wife, Kay, started a foundation to offer every one of the children he delivered a $1,000 scholarship toward college if they graduated high school with at least a 3.5 GPA.
“The scholarships were just cash that we sent to the school. We didn’t give it to the kid, we sent it to the school and we gave out about 900 of them,” he says.
Jim says it was his way of giving back, something he’s never stopped doing.
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