'The older you get the stronger the wind gets...and it's always in your face.' Jack Nicklaus
My youngest daughter started University this year.
A call home, not long after she’d arrived, went like this:
‘We had the best night last night. It started off at our flat with loads of people coming over about 8.00 for ‘Pre’s’. Then at 9.00 we went out to the pub, and then…’
‘Hang on a minute love – ‘Pre’s’?’
‘You know, ‘Pre’s’…Pre-drinks, the drinks you have before you go out drinking.’
‘Pre’s’ are drinks?’
‘Yep’
‘How are they different from the drinks you call ’drinks’?
‘They’re not.’
‘But you call them ‘Pre’s’?
‘Yep – that’s it.’
‘Why don’t you just call them drinks?’
‘Because they’re Pre’s!’
…Got it.
And I sort of see the logic. The ‘Pre’ label denotes a specific phase in the evening.
If nothing else, the term is a reference point and helps with the ‘chronologistics’* of planning a night out.
*(Yeah, I know it’s not a real word, (and yeah ‘agenostic’ isn't one either) but this is my blog not the Oxford English Dictionary).
But surely, ‘Pre’ or not, a drink, is a drink, is a drink…
In similar vein, I contend that golf, is golf, is golf…
…prefix it with the word ‘senior’ however, and note the immediate change in the way the activity is perceived. Instantly the focus shifts away from the golf… and on to the age of the participants.
I know this because this year I reached the age where I can now play ‘senior golf’.
And it can be a polarising thing.
I know people who are older than me that won’t play ‘senior golf’ for fear of the perception of having ‘one foot in the grave’.
Conversely, there are certainly a few fellow seniors who feel that, although qualified by age, I’m too young to be playing senior golf. (He’s carrying his clubs still – ridiculous!).
But the thing that strikes me most about ‘senior golf’ is...just how remarkably similar it is to… ‘golf’.
Certainly, at our club, ‘Senior golf’ is played to the same yardage, same stroke index and same par as ‘non-senior golf’.
And whether I approach my round as a senior golfer; a competitor in ‘regular’ club tournaments; or as a participant in the Saturday thrash with mates – the challenge is exactly the same.
To shoot the best score I can.
The course, my golf ball and my clubs make no distinction.
It’s also true, that when I’m just playing socially with mates, the ages involved cut across the generations. I regularly play with golfers who are in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. I've been playing golf with 'seniors' for years.
I know of no other sport where the age of the participant is so irrelevant to achieving a level playing field.
It’s the WHS (World Handicap System) not the calendar which provides the meaningful reference point.
So, when it comes to golf, I’m definitely ‘agenostic’.
And on that basis, I’m not going to defer playing ‘senior golf’ under the misapprehension that it’s the beginning of the end.
It isn’t.
If anything, in my case, it’s helped me improve. It’s provided additional opportunities to hone my game in competition.
So, I hope I’ll be playing in the seniors for a while yet...there's inspiration aplenty from those who have gone before.
Like Gus Andreone from America.
In 2014, Gus, a member of Palm Aire Country Golf Club in Sarasota, scored his eighth hole-in-one.
He was 103 years old.
I’ve never had a hole-in-one.
Maybe I never will, but playing senior’s golf isn’t going to harm my chances of attaining that particular goal – it can only provide more opportunities to do so.
In the meantime, the company is great, the golf is good, and I must confess…
...I quite like a Werther's Original.