[TEPaul]

....and what do you think you should do about it when you get lousy when you once could---as some say---"play a little"?

I love the game and playing it, I really do, or maybe I should say I really loved it but I started late and ended pretty early.

I don't get any joy and almost no motivation from playing lousy or the inevitablilty of it.

I figure there can't be a better place than this to ask questions like this.

What have some of you done who've gotten to that point and for the ones who are younger and haven't gotten there what do you think you will do when that time comes as of course it inevitably will some day?

If it didn't mean so much to me I'm sure it would be no dilemma at all and I wouldn't feel the need to ask a question like this. Somehow I think a passion for golf course architecture filled this void up to maybe a decade ago without me even realizing it. In a way I consider that to be sort of a beautiful thing.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom:

A lot of us in the golf business face the same dilemma.  Maybe we're not yet faced with playing lousy, but we aren't as good as we used to be, owing to lack of time to play ... and it's hard to re-set your goals to breaking 83, instead of breaking 80.  The irony is, it is the same thresholds that encourage you to get better on the way up that are so hard to take on the way back down.

However, I've known a lot of older fellows who still love their golf and their secret always comes down to this -- they play matches against others, with handicap strokes in play.  And when you do that, it doesn't matter whether you are shooting 80 or 90 or 110, as long as your good shot has the opportunity to beat the other guy.

[Bill_McBride]

Tom, I have been there for a while - where did that 40 yards off the tee go, anyway?  - but I still love getting out there even if it isn't pretty some times.

Once in a while you'll catch a little bit of lightning in a bottle and shoot something reminiscent of your old game, and that is great fun.

One good thing to do is avoid medal play like the plague.  Another is to play with GCAers whenever possible, as they generally are talking about the architecture so much they could care less how you play! 

That's one good thing - nobody really cares how you play but you.

And Tom D is right on above - don't let anybody talk you out of your strokes!

[TEPaul]

"However, I've known a lot of older fellows who still love their golf and their secret always comes down to this -- they play matches against others, with handicap strokes in play.  And when you do that, it doesn't matter whether you are shooting 80 or 90 or 110, as long as your good shot has the opportunity to beat the other guy."

TomD:

Most interesting you said that and obviously it's completely true since so many golfers do it. I don't like handicap golf and I never really did. It got confirmed in spades one time in a handicap singles match at my club when I shot a 67 and got beaten about six ways by a handicapper. I didn't like being in my position as a scratch then and I doubt I'd like being in my opponent's position some day any better. To me that isn't really golf, it's just sort of a trumped up numbers game.

I also have a real problem even now with not playing the back tees of any course and I never could hit it anywhere anyway off the tee with a driver even when I played at scratch for maybe twenty years. So to keep doing that now is sort of ridiculous although quite unbelievably I think it forces me to play even more strategically.

I guess my real problem is I'm not sure yet how to get old and I'm there.


"And Tom D is right on above - don't let anybody talk you out of your strokes!"

Bill:

That's another problem. I haven't played enough in the last few years to get the handicap up. I'm still a 1.5 and I should be a 10 at least to be competitive with some of the handicap thieves I know. Does anyone out there know enough about hacking computers where I could just add a surreptious little 0 behind the 1 in my USGA index? 

[BVince]

TEP,

I am coming from the younger perspective, so this opinion may change over time.  My BIGGEST thrill of golf is the art side of it.  In my opinion, GCAs are artist and it is a thrill to walk, play, think, and feel the range of emotions associated with the course/game.  I think I will play to the very end.  I may play a little less from aches and pains but not due to the poor play.  

I think the hardest part will be adjusting my mentality that even par is my goal to a more realistic goal as my age increases.  Try to re-identify what excites you the most.  

[George_Bahto]

  .............  why isn't this new equipment helping me

[Tom_Doak]

Tom P:

Just think how good it will feel when you play with some kid who hits it 320 yards and shoots 67, and you beat HIM six ways with your four shots!

[TEPaul]

"Try to re-identify what excites you the most."

Bryon:

That's a very fine suggestion. I was talking to Kirk Gill today about a lot of things and one of them was the little mysteries about hitting a golf ball that can excite a beginner. Obviously pulling off a shot that astounds you is really electric and always will be.

Maybe I should learn to settle for those types of things and times. Really exciting shots that were visualized and pulled off are pretty electric. For me these days they are shots that are visualized that run and bank and filter and such (maybe that's why looking a some photos of Ballyneal recently had an amazing effect on me). In a way, I really do regret playing my good golf years at a time when the "ground game" never functionally existed on American courses. I think it's way more exciting in some mysterious way than the straight aerial game we always had to play or just played anyway.

About fifty years of soft greens and soft approaches in America! God-damnit, I was both born too late and too early!   

[Dan Herrmann]

Tom - Come on out to Elverson..  I'll play you match play straight up, and you'll beat me 8&7

[Mike Golden]

I'm 61 and have almost gone through the same thing over the past couple of years, mostly because of a lack of playing and some outside personal issues.  I can't remember hitting as many bad shots as I have in the past year or been so uncomfortable over the ball.

I used to play lots of tennis but, after getting hurt in the late 80's, stopped playing long enough to make it almost impossible to once again play at a level that made me feel good so never really went back.

I joined a golf club in June this year partly to see if I could start playing decent golf again.  I fullly intended to quit if I couldn't start feeling good about my golf game again-the score isn't as important just feeling like I could play decently without wondering whether every shot was going to be a miss. It's taken a couple of months and lots of crappy shots but I am starting to feel like a golfer again.  I somehow managed to find a swing key from my past that give me confidence over the ball again.  My test was to play in our Club Match play tournament last weekend, and even though I lost on 18 to a good player who started out par-birdie-birdie on me I felt like I cimpeted really well and would have won except for two mental mistakes on 10 and 11 (as well as a putt that stopped 1/3 of the way into the hole).

I guess my advice to you, Tom, is to focus some attention to your swing instead of caring about your score for awhile and maybe you will find that secret magic that may have rusted by age and inattention but still lurks somewhere inside you.  

[Carl Rogers]

This December I will reach the big 55 and thus a senior.  I want to play pretty hard next year as a senior and then start a gradual slow down.  I have big to do list at home and work only seems to get harder.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom Paul,

You've seen me play, so I'm sure you find this hard to believe but at one point I could "play a little" too.   In my early 30s I had my handicap down to 2.3 and would shoot in the 70s about 3 of 4 rounds.   Don't get me wrong...I was nowhere near your league but I felt competitive and I won a club championship, and I was locally pretty good.

Hard to imagine these days.

Periodically, I have little flashes of brilliance, but as Shivas and I have admitted to each other...we flat out SUCK.

These days I'm as likely to dribble it from the tee or duck hook it into oblivion as I am to stripe it down the middle 275 yards.  

It's a reality check, is what it is.

I used to get pissed about it when I was younger...if only...if only...I had more time to practice...to play.   And if it wasn't hitting it any given day like I should, I'd be miserable, and I can't imagine I was much fun to play with.

I've changed....I've seen the light, and I've been reborn.

These days...I take this approach Tom.

I go to see and walk and study the golf course....

..oh and by the way.

I hit a golf ball along the way.

Somedays, I play pretty respectably.

Somedays, I generally suck.

Most days, I'm somewhere between heaven and hell.

But, all of those days...I see the golf course, and smell the grass and fresh air, and enjoy the walk and see the joy of the game...

...and I enjoy it infinitely more than I ever did back in the days when I could "play a little".  

Now, it's art, it's meditation, it's religion, it's relaxation, it's feeling myself becoming part of a greater whole of the world around me, and enjoying the laughter and camaraderie of my playing partners...

..and I realize why it's the game of a lifetime.

[TEPaul]

Cool post MikeG:

As for swing keys and such they were my stock in trade for years. I guess that came from learning a ton of rock solid fundamentals and ways of purposely going from one shot making extreme to another from my dad who was just amazing that way. He said if he ever got into some bad shot pattern on the course even in competition he would just purposely go to the opposite extreme and VOILA things would sort of get back to the middle pretty quick. His primary teaching adage was: "Let the ball be your teacher" but to do that you really do have to understand the entire spectrum of the fundamentals of the golf swing and what makes for shot patterns that way.

[Mike_Cirba]

by the way Tom...

..I'm off at 6am tomorrow to spend a bunch of days in northern Michigan where I'm hoping to play 10 different courses in 6 days or some other insanity, and it's pretty hard not to feel completely invigorated, excited, and alive when faced with such a prospect.

I'm sure most of my rounds will ultimately be disappointing from a scoring standpoint, but 5 years from now I'll remember the golf courses and the fun and the handful of shots that turned out unexpectedly well.

[Mike_Cirba]

Shiv,

We've obviously crossed in cyberspace, but we both suck, we both have golf-sucking-kismet and we're obviously loving it. 

[TEPaul]

Mike Cirba:

You and others are coming up with some really great stuff and I thank you for it. It's meaningful. In my twenty plus years of playing all that competitive golf I never thought an iota about golf course architecture. I guess I sort of know what I was thinking about but that really is pretty amazing isn't it that I never really noticed or cared at all about and now look at me with architecture---I don't think about much else to do with golf these days.

I think I do know you always cared about golf course architecture as so many others on here always have. Perhaps the greatest example of all is the entire Morrissett family.

[Bob_Huntley]

I am old. There are times when I feel like putting the clubs in the attic or giving them away, however the thought disappears overnight .

I'll pop down to see Ben Doyle at Quail Lodge, he gives me the bromide of the day and I feel like Bobby Jones. I go off to the club and scrape it around marvelling at the beauty all around me. A couple of good courses, the ocean, deer, hawks,  good fellowship and the possibilty that I can sucker Mike Benham to go Pig and ruin his day.  

No, I think I will do this until I drop.

Bob

[TEPaul]

Shiv, you  are priceless, you really are. I just love people who have thoroughly original thoughts that they definitely didn't borrow or get from anyone else and that is you in spades, that's for sure.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom,

Did I mention that Shivas and I are going to play together this weekend, perchance?   Possibly even that Clayman guy too!

We will all suck.   Our greatest golfing hopes will be crushed in couldabeens,shouldabeens, and whatoncewasims.

But I'm betting it will be fun! 

[TEPaul]

BobH:

I saw the dilemma with you about what I'm talking about that time we were at Sand Hills together.

I know it was bothering you because we talked about it. But if you want a compliment from a guy who could "play a little" to another who "could play a little" it is the little things that are obvious to people like us that never really go away. It's probably why they will never be able to make a great movie about golf that will ever satisfy good players unless they cast an actor who can really "play a little". I'm more than certain you know exactly what I mean.

It's like me knowing Glenna Collett Vare all those years when to me she was just this pretty cool older lady I'd see in Delray from time to time at parties who sort of had an ineffable way about her. I never knew who she was in golf. Then when I started to "play a little" my dad brought her up to Seminole to play with me. There was that same little older lady I'd known at parties for years but when she stepped on the course, the aura, the little things most don't know or recognize where just there bigtime and when she wrapped her hands around the club on the first tee---BOOM---there it was in spades---the undeniable essence of a great American championship golfer!

Need I remind anyone that Glenna won six US Amateurs!

Glenna was arguably the women amateur golfer that defined the earlier era for endurance. The other one I played with from time to time from the same golf course in Florida was the one who bracketed the later era like Glenna did the early era----Carol Semple then, and Carol Semple Thompson now. She was this lithe young mid teenager then with this big "C" back swing and it was obvious she was coming on strong. Carol probably is the all time energizer bunny at this time. I even hear she is being inducted into the golf Hall of Fame this year! She definitely deserves it---what a career in amateur golf that one is! I think I'm correct in saying she has won 23 Pennsylvania Amateur Championships and obviously she's won most everything else for a world class amateur golfer at one time or another.

[Bill Brightly]

Gee Tom, I dont know how old you are, but I turned 50 last year and now I sign up for all the 50 and over New Jersey State and MGA events. They play from middle tees, the guys are great, there is a lot less pressure than with the "kids" and it still lets me have some focus to my golf season and practice. Plus I get to see some great courses.  For me the goal is to make the cut and play the next day, I am not at the level where I can win...but it is still competition.

[Dan Herrmann]

Tom,
Here's another way to look at it - thru the eyes of my bride Laura.

Laura started playing golf when we got married in 1997.  She could hit a tee shot about 50 yards back then.  Every putt was hit about 30% too hard.  She worked and worked and worked. 

Her biggest handicap was taking 'lessons' from me.  I'm about the only person she's taken lessons from, and we're still happily married.  My first lesson was how to play fast.

We went to Bandon in 2001.  I really wanted to show her my old home in Portland and introduce her to some of my Nike friends.  (the tour of the Nike campus was also very cool).  But I was afraid of what would happen down in Bandon.

She had a ball.  The courses were very fair to her and she did OK scoring wise.  But we met some great folks at Bandon and she fell in love with great architecture (thanks, Tom and David!).  I still have a video of her after her 2nd round, and she said "wow - I only had two 9's today!).  We watch that today and laugh every time.

Fast forward to this year.  We took a week off of work and played 3 days of 36 holes at French Creek.  She really got into a rhythm and ended up scoring an 84 on the 2nd round of the 2nd day.  You'd have though she just won the US Open.  I still remember her joy in entering that score into the GHIN computer.

Tom- golf is a game of joy.  You can have that joy just playing by yourself on a beautiful morning.  You can have that joy by hitting just one shot pure.  You don't need to whip your opponent to have joy.

That's the greatest gift of golf.  The joy it can bring.  And the serendipity of that joy. 

Allow yourself to experience that joy - let yourself go and be a child at heart out there.  You'll find peace, joy, and happiness where you don't expect it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One last personal story...  We were fortunate enough to play Ross' Monroe in Rochester last year. Our friend, an assistant pro, got Laura and I out as the first group at 10am on a Monday morning. We had nobody in front of us.  The course was absolutely amazing and I was really scoring well.  And loving the architecture.   I get to (I think) the 14th tee, and realize that I'm almost across the street (through trees and a nursery) from the cemetery where my mom was laid to rest the previous year.  I never knew it was so near the golf course.  I had a tear and actually a hearty loving chuckle.  I felt like this day was a gift from my late mom.  Anyway, it started drizzling on 17 and by 18 it was a light rain.  I don't know why, but that was the most perfect day I've ever had on a golf course - totally at peace with my gal, enjoying great architecture, and in touch with my mom's memory.

That's why you should keep after the game

[paul cowley]

....guys...a good thread with much relevance for me at 56 who could once play a little.
 At times its easier for me to justify my lower skill level because I'm still involved in the game by building courses....but thats probably a cop out.

Your posts make me want to create a GCAtlas get together for seniors and super seniors....and I wouldn't care if some of us don't bring clubs!

[TEPaul]

Dan:

Good story about your wife. My wife is a great athlete but she neither liked nor understood golf. I think I've only been out there once with her with golfers around. It was at Maidstone a few days before the Bowl and on the 15th hole she is struggling and concentrating her ass off and I look back at the tee and here is this group of inveterate speed play members behind us. I just said: "Honey, just step off the hole over in the fescue and let them pass." And so she did and so did they without as much as a "By your leave." About seven minutes later when they were through she gets back over the ball worrying and concentrating. I look back at the tee and here's another group like the one who just went through, so I said: "Babe just step into the fescue and let them go." She did and then it happened again right after them and she basically looked at me as if to say: "You golfers are friggin' nutso."

[Eric_Terhorst]

Tom Paul,

My aunt and uncle had the good fortune to enjoy their 60s and 70s retired, playing golf in the season at a nice club on the North Shore of Chicago, among many friends.  They walked with caddies when they were available, played most rounds in no more than 3 1/2 hours, didn't complain about club politics or assessments, and always were thrilled to have a putt to win the hole, no matter the score.

At that age, both their real lives and their golfing lives always seemed rich to me!

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