Gary Albrecht is reveling in one special season of golf. In May, he and David Nelson won the CGA Super-Senior Four-Ball Championship. In July, he shot a 66 to qualify for the U.S. Senior Amateur and the following week carded a 67 en route to the Denver Senior Men’s Championship.
But equally memorable for the CGA’s volunteer president is a social round four years ago. He and a fellow attorney were planning to meet up for lunch to talk shop, but the beautiful weather on that November day demanded an audible. “We went to CommonGround to play golf,” he remembers. “We had a third we didn’t know join us for the front nine. We were just having a nice chat, and I was two over par after six holes. So nondescript, you know?”
Albrecht’s handicap has meandered both sides of zero over the years, so, yes, two-over was “nondescript.” Then he birdied 7. Birdied 9. Eagled 11! Birdied 12, 14, 15, 16 and 18 for a 27 on the back nine.
“We went back over the card, and not only was it a 63 overall, but I was 63 at the time, I had shot my age,” he says. “I was aware of that feat because of other people I know who are older. It certainly wasn’t a goal of mine at that age.”
Certainly, that’s some rarefied air in golf. At 67 now, Gary had shot his age seven times as we went to press. The CGA doesn’t keep statistics on this, but for most players with single-digit handicaps, the sweet spot for shooting their age seems to be in the early-to-mid 70s. Ptarmigan member Craig Chester, 86, was 70 years 10 ½ months the first time he did it, in 2009, and has recorded more than 1,000 such rounds since then. “It gets easier every year,” he told the CGA’s Gary Baines.
Consider Phil, Gary’s friend in California. “He’s 96 and he doesn’t keep track of how many times he shot his age,” says Albrecht. “He’s an 18 handicap and somebody will ask him, ‘Phil, did you shoot your age today?’ And he says, ‘I didn’t play that bad.’ He shoots better than his age just about every time.”
Confronting Father Time
In most sports, the aging, or, let’s say, maturing athlete tells tales about his or her glory days because there are no longer any reasonable goals to be set. Shooting your age is an achievement unique to golf for a number of reasons. As we age, we can move up a set of tees or two to play a shorter golf course. We can upgrade our equipment to fit our slower swing speeds. We can ride in a cart instead of walking.
Sure, we can continue walking well into our maturity. But as your fitness gizmo may be telling you, and exercise physiologist Neil Wolkodoff points out, “At age 60, instead of playing golf in your cardio zone, you are now ‘sprinting’ on various holes and even when walking up to the greens. Sprint performance is never as coordinated as aerobic or lower performance, especially on the back nine.”
Wolkodoff says fitness declines coincide with milestone ages. Muscle starts to wane as early as 30. Over 50, golfers cannot maintain a proper spine angle and neglect core training. Finally, he notes, “The average decline in flexibility due to aging is 27.5% from age 30 to 70, almost the same as strength declines.”
Women, who tend to be more enthusiastic about yoga and Pilates, may maintain more flexibility. But we don’t hear too much about them shooting their age – other than LPGA legend JoAnne Carner, who just this summer shot her age of 85 in the U.S. Women’s Senior Open. The main obstacle: Golf courses are designed for men. USGA statistics show that men who are golf club members, CGA included, average 216 yards in driving distance, which is enough to hit just about any par-3, par-4 or par-5 hole in regulation, if they’re playing from the appropriate set of tees. Women club members average 148 yards off the tee, not enough to reach most championship course greens in regulation even from the most forward tees.
Albrecht says his girlfriend, Suzy Leprino, is a former collegiate player who occasionally shoots in the 70s in tournaments and at their three clubs – Castle Pines, Frost Creek and the Vintage Club in California. But, shooting her age, 71? “Other than on an easier golf course, that’s probably not going to happen,” he says. “It’s harder for her to go low – she doesn’t always hit the greens so doesn’t make as many birdies. And she doesn’t want to give in and move way up and play a shorter course. She’d rather have the challenge.”
But in golf, hope is not lost! Wolkodoff says shooting your age is possible is because golfers continue to have potential for improvement.
Beating Father Time
“The first thing to understand,” says Wolkodoff, “is that golf will use what you have, not develop the abilities you need.” Here are his recommendations for putting up a good fight physically:
Albrecht does a lot of walking and hiking to maintain his stamina, but he also notes an attitudinal shift that has offset the inevitable shortening of his once monstrous drives.
“Overall, one thing I’ve gotten better about is being able to score lower,” he says. “I think I can just maybe stay in the moment a little better. I take advantage of good shots and sometimes have more to show for it.”
Retirement and empty nests surely can shift focus to golf. And competition in the CGA’s senior and super-senior tournaments keeps the juices flowing.
But when it comes to shooting your age, nothing helps like, well, getting older. Says Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Kim Eaton: “I just turned 65 and haven’t shot my age yet. Good goal for me.”
Some of us may have to get much older. Which, after all, isn’t a bad goal in itself.
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Journalist Susan Fornoff has written about golf for publications including the San Francisco Chronicle, ColoradoBiz Magazine and her own GottaGoGolf.com. She belongs to the Overland and Links at Highlands Ranch ladies’ clubs and ghost-writes as “Molly McMulligan,” the CGA’s on-course consultant on golf for fun. Email her at mollymcmulligan@gmail.com.