How Can I Age More Gracefully?
Dear Molly: I’m getting older, the ball doesn’t fly as far, aches and pains come and go. How can I adjust my attitude so that I still enjoy the game?
Aw my friend, I feel ya. With two years of ailments, one joint replacement done and another on the docket, I’m not half the player I was, and I wasn’t much of a player to begin with.
My approach has been to retrain my brain on why I play golf. I love the walk, the exercise, the company, the challenge. And rather than focus on the 50 things wrong with my swing, I work on letting those go and holding the simple thought, “I’m so lucky to be out here on the golf course.” I even saw a hypnotherapist for help with that, and I occasionally listen to the recording of our session.
It must be so much harder for better players, whose games have lost more than many of us ever had. For that perspective, I turned to a former champion golfer who once played on the PGA Tour and is still enjoying the game at an age when he says, “Your used-to-be-bad shots are where your good shots are now.”
Self-deprecation and acceptance of the inevitable seem to drive the enjoyment of Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Clayton Cole, 84-year-old former longtime head professional at Cherry Hills Golf Club.
“A guy in his late 70s told me, ‘Here’s the way your distance is going to go: At 55 or 56, you’ll lose a little bit, but it won’t even be hardly noticeable. You’ll not even really be able to see that you’ve lost much at 65 or 66 – you’ll lose some, but you’ll manage it just fine. And then at 75 or 76, it’s pretty much gone. And he’s been pretty much right. Then at 82 I noticed another big decline,” he says. “So a good drive for me now is around 200 or 210, where way back it used to be close to 300.”
That’s a pretty big drop, but it happens to the best of them.
“I think the biggest thing is, you have to keep working on your fitness,” he says. “Look at Bernhard Langer. Very few tour players win after age 60. They’ve lost strength. They’ve lost the sharpness in their game, the focus – and maybe some of it’s desire, because they’ve competed so long and they’re tired of competing, or because they can’t hit shots like they used to.
“I don’t hit any great shots anymore. When you don’t have the club head speed, you can’t launch the ball up and n the air and it doesn’t hold the green as well. I dealt with it by moving forward in the tees. And I stopped competing where you have to have a score for 18 holes. That’s just so hard to do now. Sometimes I just don’t even keep scores, sometimes we don’t have a bet or anything.”
Still, he plays two to three times a week in season, sometimes 9, sometimes 18, and will walk if that’s the group consensus.
“It’s the people that keep me going,” he says. “I like to be around my friends, to get the exercise and just enjoy the day.”
The thing to remember here is that when Clayton Cole talks about still playing golf at 84, what goes without saying is: “Well of course I play golf, I’m a golfer, that’s who I am.” With a 9.8 index, he regularly still shoots lower than his age and carded a 77 this season at Cherry Hills.
There’s a whole world of golfers between my game and his. For any of you in between and starting to notice a decline in driving distance and handicap, you might want to check out Shoot Your Age! for tips on compensating physically. Visit the CGA Monthly archives and see the many Wellness Tips that appeared in this year’s issues – usually just a minute or two with a golfer-specific exercise.
But when it comes to attitude, Clayton and I share our appreciation for being able to hang out with our friends, get some exercise and keep playing the game we love, no matter our age or skill level.
At some point, it’s not about championships and distance – though if we set up the game right, we might still be able to take a few dollars from our pals.
Do you have a question about golf etiquette, golf relationships or the culture of golf in Colorado? Email it to Molly McMulligan, the CGA’s on-the-course advisor on how to have more fun on the golf course, and follow @MollyMcMulligan on Instagram. Her creator, researcher and writer is golf journalist and CGA member Susan Fornoff.
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