Oh, the road has taken them in different directions for big chunks of time, and their career choices varied – military service for one, a law practice for the other – but what connected these characters a lifetime ago in Rhode Island has intersected them again nearly 60 years later and 1,200 miles down the I-95 corridor.

Golf.

“I was going through a box one night and found an old clipping from the Providence Journal,” laughed Dave Houghton.

“Yeah, he showed me the article. There was a headline, something like ‘Houghton beats Monahan 4-and-3,” said Joe Monahan, and, yes, he was laughing, too.

“Except when I showed him, he just shook his head,” said Houghton. “He told me, ‘Yeah, I see it, but I don’t remember that.’ ”

Of course, he wouldn’t, because Joe Monahan is pure golf competitor. You don’t remember the bad; you focus on the next event. Yes, even when you’re 78 and you’re trying to keep up with the kids. Like Houghton, who is on the threshold to 77.

“You should see him play,” said Monahan about Houghton. “He’s fabulous. He had a bum shoulder, hadn’t played in a few months, but I saw him one night and he said he was going to give it a try. I told him I was playing, too.”

All of which should have been a warning sign to the membership at Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla, because when it comes to grit and determination, these lads from the Boston area personify it.

The latest example: Houghton competed in the blue tee flight, qualified for match play, then went 3-0 to win the overall club championship. Monahan, meanwhile, was in the white tee division (he confessed to messing up on his entry form), but qualified and lost in the championship.

We offer this as a reminder – that Houghton and Monahan were competing against golfers 30 and 40 years younger – to demonstrate once again how wonderful and timeless this game is.

“It is fun to still be competitive,” said Houghton, who retired to Sawgrass CC a few years ago and discovered one day that Monahan spent large chunks of time there in the winter. They needed no introduction, connected as they were by this great game.

Monahan is patriarch of a truly inspiring golf family – oldest son Jay is the PGA Tour commissioner, working a par 4 away from Sawgrass CC; younger sons Brendan and Justin are avid golfers who once qualified for USGA national tournaments. Joe Monahan’s resume includes winning the 1966 New England Intercollegiate Championship as a student at Providence, and the 2002 New England Senior Golf Championship.

Houghton, who was more basketball player than golfer during his college years at Brown, did have that memorable (for him, anyway) win over Monahan back in a Brown-Providence competition in the ‘60s. But the really cool golf stuff arrived years later when he lived in Orleans – from 2014-18 he won a Mass. Senior Amateur, two Mass. Super Seniors; a New England Senior; and two New England Super Seniors.

Now, a second Sawgrass CC Club Championship beefs up the trophy case.

Impressive as all that is, it is Houghton’s life story that Monahan raves about, because it involves so many flavors of golf that are different. Houghton was born in Hingham but spent most of his childhood summers on the Lower Cape.

“My dad was a member at Chequesset (in Wellfleet) and I would go out and play with him, but I was so focused on other sports mostly I watched him,” said Houghton, who joined the Navy out of Brown and was thus never factored into the local golf scene that was a huge part of Monahan’s life, as it had been for his father and grandfather before him.

Instead, for 25 years, Houghton was a Naval intelligence officer and while every base and every port offered a wide range of sports from basketball to ping-pong, “I gravitated to golf, and we always had room for clubs.”

He got pretty good, too, so when he retired from the Navy, Houghton thought the PGA Tour Champions was worth a try. “I knew I didn’t have much of a chance, but I figured, ‘Why not?’ ”

Let the record show that at the 1994 First of America Classic at Egypt Valley GC in Forest Hills, Mich, a World Golf Hall of Famer named Tony Jacklin won, but a world-class story named “David Houghton” finished T-73, shooting 80-78 and earning $442.

That’s as deep as Dave Houghton’s Champions Tour resume goes.

“Not the most reasonable thing to do,” laughed Houghton. “I had limited success. But I had a lot of fun.”

Monahan loves the story, just as he admires his friend’s competitive fire, and he suggests that the USGA probably didn’t have to wait too long to decide whether to grant Houghton’s request for instatement to the amateur ranks.

“I think they saw how little he made and said, ‘You’re good. Go right back to amateur golf,’ ” laughed Monahan.

The return was not without its turbulence, most of it related to physical ailments. Houghton’s years of athletic endeavors – lots of basketball, much pitching of baseballs –necessitated shoulder surgeries and for various times he’s been unable to play golf.

“I’ve also had to adjust my swing to the way I can swing a club healthy,” he said.

“He hadn’t played 18 holes in three months,” said Monahan, “and he goes out and wins the club championship. How good is that?”

It’s really, really good. And it might just get even better, because after staying close to his Ponte Vedra Beach home last summer during the COVID pandemic, Houghton will return for a Cape Cod summer and circle State and New England competition.

And, yes, Monahan will be entered, too.

No one has to tell them that golf is a game for life. They are living proof.