Golf: The Last Frontier

At age 75, golf has invited me in, though I don’t deserve it.  All my life I have been leery of golf. To me it was a pastime based on failure, and the measurement of failure and the scoring of failure. What, after all, is Par? It’s a goal that most won’t ever reach, and those who do are always sorry when they don’t go under Par. Because golf seemed such a philosophy of despair, wrapped up in a tortured premise of never-quite-good enough, I enthusiastically rejected golf for most of my life. I am glad I did. By age 75, I had missed a lifetime of frustration.

Many of us baby boomers never played golf, and we probably developed attitude blocks against it by the time we reached age 65. It may have seemed to us that golf was the pastime of the idle rich or those aspiring to be idle or rich. Or golf may have seemed the detour of the non-athletic adults around the rigors of competitive sport. Or golf may have seemed like the business vehicle of the rising middle class, clubs for clubs, so to speak, to fill out your networking dance card.

For the most part, golf did not seem to apply to us. It certainly did not apply to me. I took golf in physical education in 1960 and found it a poor substitute for lawn croquet. Instead I played soccer for the University of Washington and then in city leagues for some time thereafter. Then I played community basketball with a bunch of lawyers on Sunday mornings for years. Finally, in need of less debilitating exercise at about age 55, I came to tennis. It was great fun. Tennis can be as athletic as you make it, but it always has more movement, more speed, and more real play than I would ever see in golf. And yet…

On my 75th birthday I decided to learn golf. It began as a market segmentation strategy…but ended up something else.  Players my age were dropping out of tennis with the accumulated maladies of age. They were becoming slow…fast. Most of those still standing could not move across the court to a well-placed ball. So partners were becoming limited, in doubles but especially in singles. I knew that in tennis I would probably be slowed by age 80, and at best a pasteboard image by age 85. And yet I saw older men – and older ladies — knocking around golf courses at age 95.

So that is why I set out to learn this thing I had rejected in my youth, and yawned at in middle age. And now, at age 75, I realize I have but a short time to learn my way into this new sport. Amazingly, I found that in golf whether you are athlete or couch potato, man or woman, lean or chunky — at age 75 all of your gifts must homogenize into one mindful focus on the ball. Contact is all, and when you can constantly make contact, stick-to-ball, you can create your own game. It doesn’t have to look like the golf that instructors are trying to teach people under 50. It can look like whatever works for you. You don’t need to hurt yourself or twist yourself into pretzels. At age 75 the pressure is off and, like a regression to childhood, with golf you can finally have fun.

I believe I am going to like this golf.

In these blog postings about my meandering path into golf, you may not find an excellent guide to golf, but I hope you can agree that golf means there is life remaining after age 75.


Copyright 2019 — David Hon

 

Hey Whoa, The Golf Club Swings…Me!

I recently sold my sailboat because my balance could not keep up with the swirling seas. It happens in your seventies. Standing by the rail heeled up with one foot on the wheel became scary rather than exhilarating. It was part of the reason I’m taking up golf in my seventies. But alas, even golf is not without concern for balance.

Reminds one of the poet Henry Reed, who wrote the classic poems in his series: Lessons of the War. He was a rather unwilling draftee into WW1, and these are the wanderings of his mind as he goes through training. In “Unarmed Combat”, he tells us that all of his wars were cosmic from the start, but concedes that his drill instructor has a cosmic point. The most important thing is:

“The ever-important question of human balance,                                                               And the ever-important need to be in a strong                                                                 Position at the start.”

To the 25-year-old golfer, or even to many 50-year-olds, this is a silly worry. Most people trip up and down stairs and reach up to change light bulbs and their balance is always as dependable as breathing. However, if a 70-year-old is trying to swing a golf club, to some degree that golf club is swinging back, attempting to modify the elder golfer’s weight distribution – foot-to-foot and heel-to-toe.

You might see something in common by watching your favorite athletes closely. The tennis player drops into “split step” after hitting a return volley, equally ready to change weight in either direction. The shortstop tries to land squared to the hot grounder, ready to move with any awkward bounce. The running back keeps his driving knees a foot or more apart, so he can stay stable as monsters grab out for him with monster arms.

At this point you may wish to insert a snarky muse: “but in golf the ball isn’t moving”. However, the Earth is still moving. When you swing your club, gravity tends to pull you off balance, and that gravitational pull modifies where you strike the ball. Even an inch off can dig up ground or “top” the ball. Two inches off and you may be swinging hard at pure air. Makes the game discouraging if you cannot hit the ball squarely every time.

I recently learned something when I landed in front of a female golf instructor. It became apparent she was used to seeing old men fall on their faces trying to batter the ball long to impress her. She gave me a pattern to use always — before every stroke with every club. It’s a pattern of 6 swings, three in each direction. (Most other players won’t even notice.) It takes about 6 seconds before each stroke, but it lets your 70-year-old body make effective, dependable golf shots.

Stepping slightly back from the ball, you swing the club through the spot where a ball might be, and then you swing the club back in the other direction as if the phantom ball is also being hit from that position. Think of yourself as a switch hitter in baseball, or a hockey player who needs a quick-scoring back shot off the wrong leg.  In your case, you premeditate the degree your swing with the golf club will pull you out of balance, and will cause the inner process of your body to make minor compensations so you won’t tip forward or backward or to either side which might change the relation your club should have with the ground.

It really works. Try it. It works because your body is always ready – in a way like the body the tennis player or shortstop – to adjust your weight shift to catch the ball each time in its sweetest spot. And that makes golf a sweeter spot in your golf life…Less swearing, more sighing.


Copyright 2022 – David Hon

Golf and the Chinese Communes

In our 70s people become a lot more forgiving of our memory deficit.  Except in golf, except when you are keeping score. We hear that Donald Trump forgets his score on his own golf courses.  Now he is, bless his heart, well over 70 years. That is why this report is instructive. Trump may actually forget a few strokes. But though he may be innocently forgetful, a few people might still silently judge him as unethical. Cruel world, real world.

So if you are just learning the game – as opposed to being a player for several decades – you might hope to be forgiven a few memory mistakes because of both your age and experience. Maybe, but probably not. One of linguistic anthropologist Stephen Pinker’s key findings is that all humans are extremely watchful for situations in which they might be being cheated. All humans. New Guineans and Mongolians, camel riders on the Sahara, and Congressional aides…All Humans. A multicultural truth: It is part of our eye-brain DNA. In golf, you must keep your own score assiduously, lest you seem to be cheating. Alas, that runs smack up against our short term memory lapses ( – yours AND Trump’s).

Your own good intentions will NOT be overlooked, only “underblown” by others in your 4some. (People are sometimes kind if they feel you are stupid.) If you are old and inexperienced, you’ll need some special strategy.  Luckily, I may have found that best way to play golf with others may be to underplay your actual score. Plainly: Add more strokes if you are unsure…or even if you are dead sure.

During the early days of World War II, British and Nazi fighter planes engaged in daily dogfights in the skies over Europe. Below the terrified Belgians, or French, or Dutch watched and tried to keep score. Herr Goebbels set the pattern for the Nazis: exaggerate, exaggerate, exaggerate. If 6 British Spitfires were shot down and 6 Messerschmitts also fell to earth, the radio services interpreted it differently. The Nazi radio said 10 Spitfires went down, to only 4 Messerschmitts. Everyone on the ground could count, and took the Nazi radio with a large grain of salt. On the other hand, the BBC would report 8 of their own Spitfires down, and only 5 Messerschmitts. The result of this underplay, thoughout the war, was that people not only listened more to the BBC, but moreover, tended to trust the British in all things because of that habit of understatement. (Some say that when the British “leaked” a false beach for the D-Day invasion , it was believed – even by the Nazis – because of this carefully built reputation).

Of course, one strategy may be not keeping score at all. It can indeed save you heartache, but your curiosity will eventually get you. So when you chose to keep score, the first rule for we memory-challenged oldsters is not to expect forbearance, but to downplay upward. Unless you are betting (or playing on a team). Go ahead and downplay a 5 to a 6 or 4 to a 5 on each hole. This will auto-guard the foils of your elder memory…

So how is anybody going to know when you are playing well? Believe me, not only will they know…but they will tell you. And that’s a good thing.

In the early days of Communism in China, farm workers became part owners of their farms. It is said they all worked their fields together without hard driving supervisors. To keep track of the work done by each, there was a board with a pin inserted at the level of each person’s production (cabbage heads cut, rows planted, and so forth). Everyone put his own pin in to be paid for his own production. And everyone could see where you put yourself. Were there cheaters? Of course, and because all saw one excessive mark in at once, there was vicious social pressure on the offenders. But one other result occurred. If those who were shy or unsure put their markings LOWER than they’d achieved, their coworkers cajoled them not to lower their actual numbers. Apparently, this system turned out results that were amazingly accurate.

Of course we don’t try to cheat…but we DO fumble scores. So this gives you one strategy to combat short term memory in golf, if you are playing as an individual. Underplay every score and you won’t have to apologize. As long as other players scores are not threatened by your clouded scorekeeping, you can remain a totally charming companion as long as you choose to play.  


Copyright 2022 – David Hon

Demons and Shortcuts

During my 75th year, Golf was waiting patiently for me to get a few things out of my system.

In the 58 years since I had my Physical Education quarter in Golf, I made a few miserable attempts to go out on the course with friends. A few demons emerged that I would have to take care of if I were to start golf at age 75. Since I had been in the high-tech world of Seattle, I thought that (of course) new technologies could take care of all my problems.

One problem in those misadventures was that I continually lost balls off the tee, and spent most of the afternoon flummoxing around the woods and brush which bound the fairways in Seattle. I lost enough balls to dent my next paycheck and held everyone back at almost every shot. They were kind –but it was not fun. Through the semiconductor years and the software development years, I kept swearing I would try golf again if they would develop a signal-emitting ball that I could track with my cell phone via satellite. Actually, for a number of years I felt safe that they would never develop one, since it would also continue emitting signals from far underwater, where a number of my other balls also rested. Who needs a symphony of lost balls sending gargling signals from under the lily pads.

And then someone invented the locatable ball that would beep on your cellphone screen and lead you to itself. It was some British firm (whom Americans inevitably trust) that said they had a start up company and would have the balls for sale in the next spring. However — so I wouldn’t miss out — they would gladly take orders to deliver the first ones them. I gladly put down $36 for six of them, ready to begin golf anew when they were delivered. It has been two years now, and the balls are not here yet. Perhaps they lost my address. I’ve lost their address and the official-looking receipt they sent, so I am hesitant to call it a scam. I would never have started golf again, but a YouTube video showed me how to hit the ball somewhat straighter, and that was better than having a forest locator anyway. (I’m still expecting to see those magic balls in the mail…any day now.)

The other problem I had with golf was dragging 12-14 clubs around, up and down hill and dale. I had yet to learn why they would saddle the novice with all that iron. (I still am not sure why you need that many clubs.) So then I saw the single telescoping club that would fit into a briefcase, and whose head would adjust to every loft, (and even become the putter). I thought that (- wow -) with that freedom, with essentially a single length club, my path into golf would be significantly shorter. There are a few makers of these multiple head clubs, and the Divnick one I got was quite sufficient to learn the game in one stroke, so to speak, just changing the loft to get more distance, or more height, out of the very same club. I do think that adjustable single head and one single club length, accelerated my understanding and made my single stroke a more manageable way to learn.

Not everyone would agree that this was the best way to begin, but I started out in the cold and wet December of my 75th birthday mastering this single club, and making decent progress on the 1500 yard 9 hole “executive” course near my home. I was 75 years old and what they call a “super senior”. That short course costs me $6 even today.  Full of novice gusto,  I even considered running between holes with that one adjustable club, and I understand there is actually an official variation called Speed Golf. But after jogging a couple of holes I realized I was 75 years old, after all, and not half-equipped for this kind of biathlon. (Possibly you won’t be either.)

I don’t regret either of these bizarre avenues for you to get into Golf in your belated years. Later I determined a mix of some traditional methods and many new trade-offs which befitted my age. We’re all different — especially by age 75, and hopefully you will see a path into golf which is not quite so convoluted.


Copyright 2019 — David Hon

 

The Dividends of Grandeur

At age 75, you have probably begun to worry about how you are investing your time. You may not be tracking the investment of time you have left on a spread sheet, but you must have a sense of what is lovely in life, and how you can live out what’s left in the middle of that good life. Friends and family are of course right up there, and if you are very involved with both you are fortunate indeed. There does occur more than a little loneliness in these years, however, and golf can come to the rescue. Aside from the fact that you may develop some golfing friend, golf itself can provide at least two glorious dividends for the time, and some little bit of money, that you put into it. These dividends are yours alone.

In the Candy Store post, I talked about how you can spend money on golf if you really want to, but your beginning – and probably your most significant – steps will be built on Attitude and Desire. I would venture to wager that a good golfer could turn in a decent score using only the 3 wood, 9 iron, and the putter that I suggested would cost $10-15 in a Goodwill store. What money could not buy for that golfer, or anyone else, was Attitude and Desire, and one other investment…Practice Time.

If you are retired, your golden payoff is that you have almost unlimited Practice Time. You have as much Practice Time as touring professionals, and maybe a little more. You will also have some great Senior – and even half price Super Senior discounts in many places, simply because you can occupy a course or a driving range during the working week when few other people are using it. Your low cost clubs and your discounts and your coveted Practice Time can all point you toward Golf’s two great dividends.

  Harbour Pointe – North of Seattle

Dividend #1 – The Gardens of Royalty. Mark Twain, or someone else looking for a laugh, talked of Golf as a “Good walk spoiled.” But there are good walks, and there are GOOD WALKS. Of course the grounds of Versailles or the Czars’ Summer Palace may come to mind. However, anyone walking around a rich country estate (anywhere, US, England, or really anywhere) will find the foliage and the grounds immaculately well kept. The landscaping will take advantage of the broad vistas and the trimmed forests. You will be walking through a natural dreamland that is the best that Nature can present in any area. In a very similar way, golf courses might be considered the jewels in each community. All you have to do to be royalty in the midst of this splendor is to hit a golf ball along. For sure, it becomes your shared country estate.

Dividend #2 – The Grandeur Within. It is one thing to hit a little ball out into the wide green fairways between the trees and ponds and sand – and it is quite another thing to hit it well. At age 75 you have accomplished a few things, but they are fading fast. You may not remember the few remaining people at your high school reunion. You take long flights of stairs with more effort than a few years ago. You have trouble lifting bags into the overhead bin…often people kindly offer to help. All of the things you controlled with your head and your strength…are fading fast.

With golf you are given a rebirth of a human privilege, of improving yourself by yourself. Age seems to take that personal thrill away, but with golf you have new challenges, and time and practice can give you new abilities, new skills, every month. You can get better and for many years, you can get better fast. You have exciting new revelations and new successes as you invest your time, and just a little money, in golf. The rewards are not outside you. They are inside you…and at age 75 they are priceless.


Copyright 2019 — David Hon

Hips in the Swinging Seventies

My next journey in Golf – at age 75 — has been a recent one. It’s all about Right and Wrong. Do it “Right” and you may get excruciating pain that lasts through the night. Do it “Wrong (ly)” and you will survive another day, but perhaps not look like a touring golf pro, in either style or distance.

But first, stand up straight and look at your hips. Now take any golf club and make a very small swing with it, hitting nothing Please. As the club moves from one side to the other, your hips want to follow. It’s inevitable with the club going right to left (unless you stiffen your body and use your arms only, as in putting). The hips are going to want to rotate AND swing from one side to the other.

Perhaps we were originally built to be belly dancers, but a lot of seventy year olds have lost the easy gyration (if not yet the rhythm). When you take a beginning golf class – which you will – then if it is with any mixed group, they will gravitate toward the ideal model. The way the Touring Pros look….The Right way to swing a club. It usually means the correct grip and the selected posture. Leaning slightly forward with your knees bent, they encourage you to dip your lead shoulder and rock the trailing shoulder back upward. Swinging the iron in a downward arc, they want you to hit the ball just before you hit the ground. Some people never quite get it “Right.”

The first time I did it “Right” I fell hopelessly in love. It had taken me a few weeks of trying, of dipping my lead shoulder (left in my case) , of banging the ground first or topping the ball or blading the ball hard forward. When that first Right ball flew off my club face everything was perfect and it flew further and higher than I had ever thought I could hit a golf ball. Later ( after using buckets of balls) I got to where I could hit downward on the ball and feel the perfection again — as long as I was on the mat at the driving range. I’ve not yet managed to go beyond hit and miss with irons off the grass, but I will.  The fond memory is always there: when you hit it Right, life is right.

Except that your quest for the perfect swing may well hit your hip flexors. There is a core muscle, called the Psoas, running down through your body to hold you erect. Some have compared this phenomenon to a tent, with your spine the main tent pole being held in place by stays in the ground around it.

The Psoas is a muscle you may stress outside its comfort zone when you hit the golf ball in the “Right” way. It is hard to describe my own experience, but if your hip flexors, mainly the Psoas muscle, get out of whack, you may have some very bad days until it recovers. If it was stressed enough, there may be days when something inside your hip structure seems to be paining without reason, and without any position of immediate relief.

There are a lot of physical therapy specialists (many under Medicare) who will help you through this. However, for less than a co-pay, I got a set of online videos that showed me how to exercise my way out of this hip flexor hell. A few minutes a day keeps the flexors aligned, or loose, or whatever they want. You can find your own comfortable method, but do assuage that Psoas.

Which brought me to discovering my Wrong way. Some golf writers are even suggesting older golfers should swing more upright, with feet closer together. You will not look like the Touring Pros who are such leaders in golf. I cannot tell you exactly how, but this slightly more upright swing might help you “shallow out” your stroke in a way that sometimes gives you more accuracy and consistency. But even if these new Wrong ways seem logical and helpful, clearly the Wrong way may not be the right way for everyone.

Copyright 2019 — David Hon

 

Contact with an Earthly Orb

At 75, or any age, the first thing to realize is that the sport is about contact with the ball. The proper swing which whiffs the ball negates anything else which is good. (Though in scoring, and whiffed ball does not count as a stroke, ironically.) The right position and the right balance and the best grip in the world are never the equal of pure contact with the ball. Though difficult, your contact with the golf ball is the only reason you are out there. Missing the golf ball is not even as good an exercise as going to the gym.

So the Holy Grail for the senior golfer is the “easy swing” that consistently hits the ball. Listen to this podcast philosophy from The Senior Golfer Advisor:

Other sports do have contact that is difficult, and if you’ve played them, you have a big head start. For instance if you have played baseball, you stand still and watch the ball come in front of you at as fast as 100 mph. Then, if your swing’s “sweet spot” is perfect to with an inch, you may get a home run or solid hit. Miss by another inch and you strike out swinging. Tennis does have a few more inches of this “sweet spot” but then you may have to be on a dead run at the same time.

Needless to say, in golf, you get to stand still, and hit a ball which is also not moving. (This is especially important when you are age 75.) However, the true “sweet spot” to contact a golf ball is not much larger than ½ inch. ¼ inch more in any direction makes a poorer contact and a disappointing shot. More than that may be no contact, and certainly no effective shot, at all.

So you must learn several ways to be extremely precise when you start to make contact with the ball. Those are the first things you should work on when you first pick up a golf club. Before you try any more intricacies of golf, just pick up a club. Any club will do, but an iron is best if you have a choice. Now hold it loosely in both hands and reach down to the ground with it. When it touches the ground, keep your hands in the same place but move the club about a foot to the side (right if you are right handed). Then, holding the club loosely, let it swing downward by gravity alone.

If the “gravity swing” drops the club back to its starting position and brushes the ground, you have a great start with golf. Later you will hear the phrase “let the club do the work” and this simple gravity swing is a great beginning to an effective golf swing. Brushing the ground with the easily swinging club head, every time, means you have achieved “finding the ground.” Until you know what “finding the ground” feels like, nothing else you do in golf will matter.  Most of what I will blog here is my own humble opinion (IMHO), but I believe “finding the ground” is a physical fact, a law of the golfer’s universe that no golfer can deny. Most of the rest of what you will learn in golf has to do with finding the ground (and the ball on it) consistently and with some power.

I hope you can follow the rest of these blogs with a grain of salt. They are not a set of instructions (which abound online and in reality) but a result of my explorations –good and bad — as a 75 year old beginner. I am humbled by the vast history and expertise of golf, but I am more humbled by the restrictions of age and even the probability that Death will stop the strides I am making toward being a golfer. Your brothers and sisters and children who play golf will clearly share their excellent knowledge. But here – to our community of 75 year olds — I will try to offer some easier alternatives and short cuts I have tried, though some may seem bizarre, and others downright sacrilege.


Copyright 2019 — David Hon

Beware the Candy Store

When you are learning golf at age 75 there is no end of beginnings. The people at the golf pro shop will say you must first have a good set of clubs. Your local golf instructor says you need instruction, and he’ll provide the clubs. The fancy golf resort in Hawaii will assume you want a world class course and a five star hotel room. Some golfing friends will say you must join the country club. Be sure of this. You’ll get a lot of help. The vast business of golf will welcome you to its candy store, and they’ll help you reach for your credit card with smiles all around….

 

So…Let me put it in a different light: Simple Beginnings. Golf can be fun and cheap or golf can be frustrating and expensive. If you spend a lot of money up front for full sets of clubs or four one-hour private lessons or a country club membership, you will want some kind of result for the money. You may not progress quickly at all, and if you have spent a bunch of money that will be demanding on your performance.  I’ll offer another approach.

You do not need pressures on yourself when you are learning golf at age 75. Do this. Go to a miniature golf course during the day when there are no kids or families around. A few friends might make it more fun. Just putt the ball through a monster’s mouth and bounce it around corners and you will get a feel for putting. It’s the simplest shot to start with in golf. Mostly you will do it right, with two hands on the putter and striking the ball just hard enough to put it in the hole, and not hard enough to hurt anyone.

One of the most interesting golf stores is not a golf store at all. It is the local Goodwill. The local Goodwill will have a wonderful selection of used golf clubs in wonderful condition. My suggestion is that you start by getting only a putter, and a nine iron, and a 3 wood. Mostly the size will be for the average golfer, and if you are short you may want to get junior or ladies sizes.  Except for an occasional pink paint job, the clubs have no idea what sex you are.

You can probably buy these three beginning clubs for $10…$15 max. Later you will spend more, but only when you know more of what you are doing. These three clubs will let you begin to experience the 3 important parts of a golf game. With a 3-wood  you can learn driving for your Long Game, both from the tee and on the fairway. With that 9-iron you can learn to hit any iron, especially in the Short game (when you are approaching the green). And of course the putter will be the last club you use, on the green, to get the ball in the hole with your Putting game.

In a short time you will discover areas where you can physically practice, and inexpensive ways to begin playing. The putting green at any public golf course (,  and in some golf stores,)  is usually free for unlimited practice. No one will ask you what you are doing. You are improving your golf, like any other golfer, high school to touring pro. To beginning experiencing Long Game and Short Game shots, you can find little plastic  “practice” golf balls with holes in them to practice contacting the ball with your 9 iron and your 3 wood, and not breaking any windows. Probably these can be found at the Goodwill as well, but enough to begin hitting will only cost a few dollars at any store with a Sports section. A large backyard or, better, a patch of grass in a neighborhood park will do fine for you your first efforts at contacting a plastic practice ball. It’s not the exact feel of contacting a real ball, off course, but it will begin to develop your eye and your basic stance and swing.

 Later you may want to hit a “bucket” of real balls, to improve your Long Game, and go around a short 9 hole “pitch and putt” course to begin actually playing with your few clubs. You may learn some basics in an inexpensive group lessons and that is a good idea, but basically you cannot buy the ability to hit that little ball. You must learn to make contact, and hit it where you want it to go. This means you first invest a little time.

Begin your golf learning in this way, and when you finally walk into the golf candy store, you’ll know much more of what you want, and what you need.


Copyright 2019 — David Hon

Buy a New Sport, Old Sport!

Learning a new sport at age 75, or any age, is a bit like buying a car. The first decision, of course, is whether you actually need a car. There are buses and now Ubers to give you a range beyond your legs. In a like manner, you may decide in an instant that you don’t need any sport for your old age. And if you did choose a sport to become involved in, you may know instantly that it would not be golf. That is the way I was for most of my life. Instantly, totally, and fervently adverse to golf. I’m glad I avoided it until now, because golf is definitely more suited to old age. (Mark this as “B.O.” – Blogger’s Opinion.)

However, having enjoyed playing sports all my life, and finding myself in old age year 75, I predicted I might soon need a new sport. Back to buying the car. Perhaps the ideal way to buy a car would be to borrow – or more likely rent – one that you are interested in and drive it for a week or so. With golf, I think that is as simple as finding a place to hit a few balls. The driving range is such a place and many, many golf courses have public driving ranges associated with them. Say the cost of a bucket of 30 balls costs you $5. They will usually loan you any kind of club you want to smack those balls. If you are not still an athlete you will miss them all. But probably you will connect with a few of them, even the first time out.

Now if you don’t get some satisfaction in hitting a few of the balls squarely (and you will probably miss or miss-hit a LOT of them this first go), then golf may not be interesting. However, if you crack one, just once, and it travels high and away from you over the green in front of you, arcing against the sky, you may like the feeling. This contact is the prime feeling in golf, and beyond all the many other reasons for “buying” into this new sport. It’s a brand-new thrill! And  those of us age 75 do often wonder if there are many truly new thrills left.

I’ve already mentioned another experience to guide you to golf: the miniature golf course. These exist of course in amusement parks but also in the back lots of gas stations. Some have loop-the-loops and others have swinging bridges to putt across, but it is all putting. It is all putting the little ball the last few feet until it drops into a hole. Putting is the next prime feeling in golf, tapping the ball into the hole. If you never are able to drop the ball in the hole when you try, you may not be interested in golf. But when a long one drops in, even at a dinky miniature golf course on the side of gas station at some state highway, you feel like you’ve done something. You feel like a real golfer.

If you enjoy smacking a ball from the ground to the skies, or watching for seconds as  your long crazy putt meanders into the hole, (or both),  those are the best reasons for you to consider golf as your next sport. Playing with family or friends is a distant second. Playing for business or community contacts is a very remote third reason.  But smacking and putting are pure play, kids play. Fun play.

Good or bad, everyone has their reasons. Whatever your reason, in some of the next posts I’ll relate some steps toward actually playing the game at age 75. Some ways are cheap, some pragmatic, and of course some elegant and expensive. Golf, especially in America, has many sides and reasons catering to the 40 million people who say they are golfers. At 75, you are in the prime situation to experience golf in any way that suits you.


Copyright 2019 — David Hon

Golfing – A Feminine Frontier

At age 76, there are two things I will probably never be in this lifetime. One is being age 75 ever again, and the other is being a woman. 

I’ve been communicating here about learning golf as a 75 year old, and I have meant to include all of us in that. First, it is good exercise with little chance of falling. It does get you out of the house and doing something that is constantly challenging, and fun. You can play golf with others, or all by yourself. There are lots of ways you can begin inexpensively and then spend more if you get more involved. What you do have, if you are retired at age 75, is the time to explore golf more…whether you have played a bit before or are taking up golf for the first time.

Those are the same for 75 year old men or women. Another thing, almost the same, is how sports you might have played when you were much younger give you a start on the new skills of golf now. Girls playing basketball know where the ball has to go, just as boys know how hard it is to hit a baseball. My wife Brenda had played tennis and field hockey, and most of her golf shots turned out to be straighter than mine.

Of the few things I do know about women, these would definitely recommend a 75 year old taking up golf (as opposed to – say – rugby). First, you are likely to live much longer than men.  Statistics give you four or five more years, as I remember.  You might as well spend that time enjoying golf.

Secondly, a lot fewer women than men say they have ever played golf, but that is a supreme advantage.   Roughly, I remember that about 23% of all women say they have played golf, as opposed to over 60% of men. (Please don’t break my fingers if these are not pinpoint exact. You get the idea and the idea is factual.) If you compare this to the possible gene pool, that means you as a woman will have TWICE the odds of becoming a respectable golfer as any man!

Some other advantages women have over men in playing golf are a little more speculative, but observation will  bear them out.  Good women golfers can often hit a ball 275 yards, nearly as far as a man. Golf observers say it is because these good women golfers have a very smooth and complete swing with their whole body which takes a ball much further than the arm strength of a man alone. The short game doesn’t rely on strength at all. That is why year after year the professional men and women golfers have very similar averages in their tournament play.

However, my own speculation is that women are mostly built better for golf. Their generally lower center of gravity gives women a lot greater balance and stability on their own two feet than men could ever have. This means that their golf swings can be more consistent, and so they can eventually depend on their shots not only being straighter, but that all power of their swing will more consistently strike the ball in the right place.

As a man, I welcome 75 year old women to the world of golf, and I promise not to be too envious of the advantages you bring.


Copyright 2019 — David Hon

The Wellness Club

As you may have noted, all 75 year olds are not built for golf. Some of us, unfortunately, already have to have assistance with activities of daily living. You may have noted at the bottom of this web site that we suggest you mention to your doctor that you want to try golf. They may know something that we do not — and you do not — and they will advise you on that.

However, there are doctors of all opinions. At one time cardiologists thought heart attack victims should spend the rest of their lives in bed. With more research, and some years later, a few modern doctors now have some similar victims running marathons. Some doctors say to go easy on your arthritis and others say exercise those joints or they will atrophy. Golf club manufacturers have arthritic grips so older golfers can still grip the clubs firmly. Special golf gloves make it easier for arthritic fingers to grip clubs as well.

So there are limitations, and there are solutions, but mostly there are attitudes. You may be surprised to know that you do not always have to do as the doctor advises. Doctors ice many “tennis elbows” and tell the tennis players to wait out the healing of ligaments for weeks. However, in one such tennis situation I got a prized appointment to the local professional football team’s chiropractor.  (These football players beat on each other with their arms for a living. )  He said if I could take a few painful manipulations, I could possibly be back playing in a day or so (much as the professional football players are told, I am sure). Well, these bizarre manipulations hurt a lot, but they worked. So much for resting our lives away….

In other cases, back surgeons may advise surgery for backs, but they get 10s of thousands of dollars per procedure, and they may have kids to put through college…Life is crass that way. Always remember: You are the medical consumer and if a chiropractor or an Asian acupuncturist works for you, you are still in charge.  And then, even if you are not hurting, I would say that you might want first to do a self-assessment. Here is a little “wellness exam” to see if you are fit enough to start golf:

    1. Can you tie your own shoes? Tying shoes also has a lot of manipulations involved, and some people over 70 wear nothing but loafers and bedroom slippers, unless they have some help dressing for occasions.
    2. Can you walk one straight mile without stopping? If you can, you can probably play golf, since you will have to do some walking however you approach it. Of course, walking the full course (perhaps with a roller) gives excellent exercise to any age.
    3. Can you pick up a piece of paper from the floor? This requires some balance and agility and of course you will often have to set tees and pick up golf balls.
    4. Can you clasp both hands over your head? Often you are not required to work over head, and shoulders do deteriorate. (Notice that we are NOT asking you to repeat three words we gave you earlier. You can remember score on your fingers….)
    5. Can you pick up a 20 pound suitcase by its handle? A minimum of arm and body strength will be necessary for golf.
    6. Can you climb two flights of stairs without using the railing? Have a railing at hand if you try this, because balancing on one leg as you step to the next step is possibly a difficult set of moves.

I am not saying these are the only qualifications to play golf at our age, but enthusiastic as you may be, a firm self-assessment such as these questions offer will let you move forward with more confidence. If these are easy tests to pass for the Wellness Club, then let’s get going with golf clubs!


Copyright 2019 — David Hon