WILTON — The antique leather golf bag blends in with the walls of the refurbished Wilson Lake Country Club clubhouse so well that it is easy to miss.

The eye is naturally drawn to look outside the clubhouse window at the new deck, the Stiles and Van Kleek-designed course or the rolling mountains in the distance. But above the window hangs a nod to the course’s history — a bag that belonged to George Goodspeed, the first president of Wilson Lake Country Club.

“I carried that bag,” says an elderly man in a navy blue WWII National Memorial hat.

In his 91 years, Earl Munro Hawkins, “Mun” to his friends, has become even more of an institution at Wilson Lake Country Club than the late Mr. Goodspeed or his leather bag. His love affair with the course and the game has outlasted a world war, a long career in banking and an even longer marriage.

Hawkins’ family and friends gathered to honor him Friday at a tournament celebrating his 65th year as a member at Wilson Lake. Nancy Pratt, Wilson Lake’s general manager, organized the tournament and somehow for several weeks kept it a secret from the man she calls a “living history of golf here.”

She could add — a living testament to the power of one man’s passion for golf.

Hawkins still stalks the Wilton course, undaunted by his age but limited by a health scare this past Easter. He’s been relegated to nine holes per outing since the surgery that removed a cancerous tumor from his colon (no chemo required).

He still regularly shoots in the low 40s. He hopes to get a chance at a round of 18 soon, to prove he can still shoot his age, which he has done since he turned 70.

His unwavering love of the game and the fellowship and beautiful scenery that await him at Wilson Lake keep bringing him back. Only one 9-hole course he has played compares in terms of scenery, he said — Herring Cove on Campabello Island, off the coast of New Brunswick.

Wilson Lake captured his imagination even before it was built.

When construction of the course began, it inspired Hawkins and some of his friends. They built their own little golf course in a pasture in North Jay, and Hawkins taught himself to play with only a four iron and using tin cans for holes.

Wilson Lake opened in the heart of the Depression, in 1932. Hawkins grew up five miles from the course and got a job there as a caddy when it opened. He worked every season and made 20 cents an hour for six years before moving to New Hampshire with his parents in 1938.

He worked at a grocery store in North Conway but the golfing bug stayed with him. One day, as he got set to play a round at a local course, a hulking man approached him and the club pro and announced he wanted to play a round. He  invited the awestruck young man to be his partner.

What was it like playing a round with Babe Ruth?

“Terrifying,” Hawkins recalled with a chuckle. “He was quite a celebrity, and I was quite impressed.”

“He was good (at golf). He was long (off the tee). He was very long. A little wild, but he could shoot in the high 70s,” added Hawkins, who played with “The Bambino” twice that summer. “You could hear him on the golf course, too. He was quite loud on occasion.”

Hawkins returned to Farmington to attend college, but joined the service three years in. A tour of duty in England as a navigator with the 8th Air Force during World War II interrupted his golfing for a while. The closest he got to the links was a flyover of St. Andrews on what he called a “booze run in Scotland.” He and his B-24 crew mates each earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, though not for that mission.

He met his late wife, Juanita, during the war. The military changed the spelling of his last name from “Hawkens,” and Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins had their first daughter shortly after the war. Mun missed the birth because someone had some good irons to sell him, and good irons were hard to find after the war.

Back in Farmington after the war, he worked his way up from teller to bank president of People’s National Bank. Through 36 years working there and raising two daughters, he played as many as 300 rounds in a year and improved to a two handicap.

He won nine club championships at Wilson Lake and sank 10 of his 14 hole in ones on his home course. Juanita had three hole in ones before she passed away 10 years ago, and together they hold the unofficial state record for aces by a husband and wife.

Hawkins wouldn’t promise any aces Friday. His 87-year-old brother, William Hawkens, and adult grandsons Shawn Guest and Shannon Lawton joined him in the last foursome.

Mun wouldn’t rule out winning his own tournament.

“They all think I’m an old man, but I can still fool a few of them,” he said.

To Hawkins, the beauty of golf is it can make a fool of its most devoted players. The day he conquers it is probably the day he’ll stop loving it.

“You’re never going to beat it,” he said. “You always hope today is going to be better than yesterday.”