Pete,
To your original question, yes, I think i am much more aware of the GCA now at 68; I just have to play the game at least somewhat differently.
Par 5's that used to have risk-reward decisions for me now are just risk, really; I can get into a lot of trouble around the green, but really can't get to many of them in two. Like others, I not only don't hit it far enough anymore, but I don't hit it high enough anymore, either. Perhaps more to the point, there is an increasing number of par 4's on which I must think carefully about where I want to miss the green; on my home course, there are three par 4's on which my stroke average is 5.0 on the nose.
I never made a LOT of birdies, but I make a lot less now, though I putt well; I just don't hit it particularly close, largely because of the clubs I'm hitting into greens. And along those lines, I've given up on fairway woods completely; driver, then 4 hybrids before my longest iron, which is a 6 iron.
But I'll add this: I've enjoyed the battle of not only trying to keep my strength and speed and trying to keep tweaking my equipment to combat my birth certificate, but also the challenge of getting around the golf course a different way. I often think back to Pat Mucci, when he had been quite ill, writing about the pleasure of "tacking" his way around a golf course differently than he had when he was completely healthy. That was years ago, but it's stuck with me, and I've found it helpful. Planning your approach shot on a long par four with less regard for where the pin is and more consideration of the best chipping area is NOT a bad way to play the game. I've come to understand that the best way to have a good short game is to miss in places where you have a reasonable chance to get up and down, and my 7 iron and I have developed a close personal relationship thru countless bump-and-runs that keep me in the hole.
The other thing that has really helped me is the Carolinas Golf Association, which runs an incredible number of tournaments for old guys at yardages that are friendly. There are both 65 and 70 year old divisions, and the yardages for those are between 5500-6000, and they run another series where you pick your division by yardage, not age. A few of the tournaments are individual, but most are four balls, and all have both gross and net winners. In pre-pandemic 2019, the CGA had SIXTY tournaments for seniors, and I find that playing competitively is such fun that to whatever extent moving up tees and/or the loss of distance are issues, they just sort of disappear.