"Whatever happened to the days when the old could compete against the young on the golf course?"
As much fun as it was seeing geezer Peter Senior compete with the flatbellies in recent weeks Down Under, it doesn't sound like that'll be the case this summer since the Australian Open winner earned a spot in the WGC at Firestone.
The Aussie Golfer featured Senior's quote...
"Already last week I got into the World Championship at Firestone but I won’t be playing. Firestone is just ridiculously long for me. I played Doral two years ago, it all depends, yeah I am quite happy to go back to Doral, it’s not overly long and I feel that I can play there. But Firestone, some of the holes they have really taken back. I don’t want to blaze away for four days and be 55th and that is pretty much how it would be because the course just doesn't set-up for me."
"Holes like number eight, when I first played Firestone back in 1990 that was the first time I ever played it, that was like driver - seven iron, now I’d be going in with driver rescue, the greens are so small and nearly every hole that I'm hitting I'm landing onto the uphill in the fairway and I just stay there, all the other guys are carrying the hills and getting 30-40 yards run and they are going in with a nine and eight iron."
Prompting the Aussie Golfer to ask a fair question: Whatever happened to the days when the old could compete against the young on the golf course?
Maybe all of that core work the young guys are doing?
Wednesday, December 19, 2012 at 11:29 PM
Reader Comments (16)
How rich is Peter Senior?
....sure appears that the Brown & Fast movement will significantly extend careers, no?
Unfortunately my members never agreed
It always left me shaking my head that they couldn't see they could have better playing conditions and lower maintenance budgets
All they wanted was lush green everywhere.....pity really
How rich is Peter Senior?
He couldn't count it all. He has an incredibly successful business outside of golf in Australia - and he has made a lot of money playing these past 30 years.
Taking Senior's expectation to not do well at Bridgestone, last place there earned $40,750 last year. A T10 finish at 3M last year would have earned ~$37,000 and a T7 $56,000. Senior finished T7 at 3M last year. It seems a justifiable choice financially to skip the WGC.
There have always been and always will be courses that are too long for certain players, and most certainly old guys, to compete. But the fact is that modern equipment has allowed players to stay competetive longer in this era than ever before.
Hard fast conditions are usually needed for older players who wish to compete on longish courses. That and still being able to swing it 115mph+ helps too...that's when the new rocks really kick into high gear. The youngsters don't know how easy they've got it.
The game is uncrecognizable now in the sense that a 200 yard 7 iron is pretty commonplace.
Couples, Calc, Perry, Norman, Singh, Lehman-these guys are still all longer than the likes of Donald or Zach Johnson-so to say that 50 plus golfers can't keep up, distance wise, is nonsense.
There are seniors who don't hit far enough to compete-but that's because, sorry Peter Senior, they're out of shape and/or have techniques from the old school that favoured precision over power i.e. Faldo, Price, Funk.