I think Golf needs a name change. Seventeen holes of crap and "I HATE THIS GAME!" and one great shot on the 18th comes with "I LOVE THIS GAME- I WANT TO PLAY EVERY DAY!". Let's call it 'Human Nature'. Or, BOHICA (Bend Over, Here It Comes Again).
I used to have days where I could drive well, but something else would go away, as if I had never played before.
My crowning achievement- on a course where I played frequently and usually shot 80-85, I fired up a round of 85, with 46 putts. Go ahead and laugh about that- I do. Reaching the greens was clearly not my problem- I couldn't reliably make an 18" straight putt. That problem took awhile to cure- turns out, I was standing over my putts for far too long and was second-guessing my aim, so I would 'correct' just before the head met the ball. The other cause was due to bad course management- reaching the greens in the lowest number of shots usually meant that I was left with ridiculously long first putts and after seeing Tom Watson talking about his scores improving by leaving it short and going up & down, I decided to do the same and it made a big difference.
I went to California for Christmas in 2004 and took my clubs- we played at a nice course in my aunt's retirement community. She was involved with someone who had played on the Cal golf team when he was in college and he played basically the same way then as he had when he was young- don't worry about killing the ball, hit it down the middle, take a par. Some of us were doing the 'Grip it & rip it' all over the course and there was Dan, right down the middle, on in regulation or one over on long holes. This guy was about 5'-6" and a bit round- he probably topped out around 170 yards but he scored very well. He said it made his college opponents crazy.
I played for the second time a couple of weeks ago since killing my knee three years ago. I played last September and was OK with the score because for me, actually playing was more important. This time, with no practice, no touching my clubs since last year, no glove or spikes and no warmup/stretching, I hit my first drive dead straight down the middle, lipped out my first putt for par. Second drive- straight down the middle. It took five holes to miss a fairway. I have absolutely no idea how far I hit most clubs and wasted 8 shots on bad short chip shots, but still shot 52 with 16 putts. My short game has always been very good, but I would bet that if I practice around the green, I'll be back in the low-mid 40s again. My swing is in no way 'normal' or as powerful as it was, but I have found a way to get decent distance and my direction was definitely better than I would have expected.
IMO- more older golfers need to stretch on a regular basis, with or without golfing. Even a young person shouldn't go from zero to slamming a driver without it. Knees, ankles, back, shoulders, wrists- everything needs to be flexible. Also, balance is a big problem for older people and part of my rehab after the knee involved a lot of leg raises in all directions- those help the glutes, flexors, quads, etc and just walking improves- it would certainly help in golfing.
