Geezer Golf
For many years I was a typical low 80's golfer. I could hit the
ball a reasonable distance, but rarely accurately enough to avoid the
occasional blowup hole and often couldn't recover from a bad drive or
approach. Then after 10 years of 18 holes walking and carrying a
bag almost every day I wore out the cartiledge in my left hip. I
still walked, had to put the bag on a pull cart, but I couldn't swing
like I used to -- I couldn't rapidly shift my weight onto my left side,
meaning I made a kind of rounded swing without a lot of lower body
movement.
I thought that limitation would really hurt my game. I certainly
couldn't hit the ball as far as I used to, but a very odd thing
happened. My handicap didn't go up, in fact if anything it went
down. True, I couldn't hit the ball as far, but without all that
lower body thrashing around I rarely missed the fairway and then
usually only by a little bit. The result was I played mostly with
my driver, then hitting my 3 or maybe a mid iron and if necessary
chipping and putting. I got really good at chipping and tolerable
at putting.
I described the experience to a freind, who said "welcome to the world
of Geezer Golf". I thought about that and realized that I had
become one of those guys I used to hate in competitions. The one
I outdrove by 50 yards, but he always managed somehow to get the ball
in the hole for a par, while I was till flailing around in the rough or
the woods. That realization was a real "aha" moment for me.
The bad hip had done with 50 years of lessons, practice, and play
hadn't -- gotten me to slow down and just swing within my limits.
Realizing this I modified some other things as well. I stopped
trying to hit every iron as far as I physically good and instead scaled
back my distance expectations and just hit within the limits of what
would result in solid contact.
I won a lot of league matches this year. I amazed some freinds
playing in golf weekends who don't want to look at me hobbling around
the course and assume I'll be a hopeless hack, then watch me run off a
round of mostly pars and a few bogies. The more I think about it,
the more I think a lot of people with perfectly functional joints would
play a lot better golf by slowing down and learning "geezer
golf". About the only downside I've found is that I'm not nearly
as useful a partner in a scramble as I used to be, since scramble is a
game where consistency isn't rewarded, since you get 4 chances at every
shot and even hackers can usually get something in play once every 4
shots.
Soon, I'll get that worn out hip replaced. Assuming the recovery
goes well I'll have a dilemma -- go back to my big swing, or continue
to play geezer golf. It's going to be a tough choice.