59, of course, is a number that, from a golfing perspective, is very difficult to write. So much so that even if you are a woman and achieve it, you are immediately crowned with an ironically prestigious title of Miss like Annika Sörenstam. Only 14 players have achieved rounds of 59 strokes on the PGA Tour (Jim Furyk scored 58, so there are 15 who have gone under 60). For this reason, don’t be surprised, patient reader, that even Nicklaus broke his pencil lead or that not even Tiger alone has been one of them. Only with the support of his own blood in the PCN Championship of 2024 have we seen him in that record. We would all bet that his practice rounds are excluded from this count, but to confirm it, it would be better to ask Mark O’Meara the powerful reasons why in April ’97 he decided to quietly leave a party of birdies and eagles of Tiger before finishing one of those rounds that were the prelude to his powerful victory at the Masters in Augusta a few weeks later.
Outside the PGA, we have another handful of players within the legendary brotherhood of 59 (or less), among them Three Musketeers like DeChambeau, Joaquín Niemann, or Alex del Rey (the Madrid native, like Furyk, scored 58 on the Challenge Tour). With such a lineup, anyone would sell their soul to Faust to be D’Artagnan and complete the match, “all for 59 and a 59 for all.”
But what if instead of talking about 59 strokes, I turn them into biological age? Surely you are already starting to frown, or maybe curiosity has brought a mischievous smile to your face. It seems that for 59 in this context, the exclusivity belongs to none other than the not-so-well-known Huckleberry Dillinger, Tom Watson, to his friends. If the lighthouse of Turnberry has illuminated you and you have just brought to present value his imperial performance in the 2009 Open, where this time the outcome of the duel prevented him from making history, you are very close to intuiting the concept of edagolfism and adding it to your particular dictionary as the RAE did in December 2022 with the word “edadismo.”
Well, 59 were the springs Watson had when he fought hard with a thirty-something named Stewart Clink with an outcome that erased at a stroke what would have been the greatest achievement in terms of longevity in the majors. However, that incomplete feat did not serve for the R&A to reconsider the age limit to play the Open, but quite the opposite. It has been progressively reduced, and all those who kiss the Claret Jug from 2024 onwards will not be able to follow the path of the beloved Watson, as the age limit to play set is 55 years for former champions.
The debate about age and longevity in professional golf serves itself and even hot. However, while we resolve it, know, increasingly esteemed reader, that the Morris saga still holds the exclusive of being the youngest and oldest player to win the Open: dad Tom at 46 years and his son at 17, curiously only a year apart, in 1868. In the Spanish newspapers of the time, an Erin from the past would surely have tried to publish in the Revista de España a chronicle of a “Glorious” family to ignite that budding interest in the sporting activities of the society of the time with the focus still more on hunting.
But let’s take the DeLorean and travel to 2021. It is in this year when a lefty with powerful calves steps forward and enters the scene in the PGA to demonstrate that the fifties are the youth of old age and that the 12.7 kilos that the Wanamaker Trophy weighs can be lifted without much effort. With this, he surpassed the record of Julius Boros, who achieved his own veteran victory at 48 years and four months also in the PGA, but back in 1968 when young Parisians chanted that we should be realistic and ask for the impossible.
I trust that your level of geekiness and my words have managed to make you visualize and revel in the 366-yard missile on the 16th hole that Mr. Mickelson fired to slap what is the longest and one of the most demanding courses in the history of the majors: the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island in South Carolina. We cannot deny that virtuosity lies in the control evidenced by the famous Phil Flop, but one of the litmus tests, when we talk about edagolfism, is questioning whether there is a correlation between the distance with the biggest club in the bag and age. The idea is to conclude that golf is not a sport based solely on power or speed and that equipment, physical preparation, nutrition, and recovery allow one to remain competitive even when brute strength decreases and creatine supplements have to be included in breakfast.
Thus, the longest drive to date by a youngster like Nick Dunlap is also among his memories of the 2024 PGA but “only” a distance of 324 yards. Yes, I admit it’s an opportunistic fact: Dunlap’s 20 years are nothing, as Gardel would say, although it makes him the youngest player with a PGA card (until another Potter comes with some of his rookie tricks when he finishes university) and, moreover, highlights Phil’s feat.
In case the argument still doesn’t seem convincing enough, patient reader, the average distances of the oldest players on the PGA, Lucas Glover (45) and Adam Scott (44) are 290.7 and 307.1 yards respectively, while Dunlap’s is at an intermediate point: 299.9 yards. During his victory in the 2021 PGA, Phil recorded an average distance of 295.5 yards. Conclusion: age does not prevent being powerful with the driver. Moreover, there is consensus that the short game is what makes the difference, and it is there where physical condition is not so determinant. It is an axiom that in golf, as in life, what you lack in experience you cannot always make up for with science, be it technique or skill.
Thoughtful – and most of them anonymous – members of the R&A, please reconsider your approach, especially considering that life expectancy increases exponentially every year and that we have peculiar millionaires like Mr. Bryan Johnson making an industry of immortality. Golf marketing also has to change. All of us who now follow the new generations want to see them also when, due to their age, they tell us stories of overcoming, resilience, and experience. Let the barriers and limits be set by each player.
It is true that the statements of “my Rory,” the brilliant two-time champion of The Players, about his idea of not playing in the Champions, unless something terrible happens, (Rory, I don’t want to dwell on the idea of what you consider terrible lest I have to tear my clothes as you did your shirt in Dubai) do not help to promote golf being more inclusive, also in terms of age. Surely many golf senators, and not just Ernie Els, who today display skill and good play in this circuit, said the same thing in their day. I would like to be able to ask Tiger that same question, assuming he could rise from his multiple injuries. If any of you are less than six steps away from Amanda Balionis, please suggest it on my behalf. Probably, the answer, and the look that accompanied it, would be as vehemently forceful as those he had when, in his appearance in Augusta after that fateful accident, he was asked if he thought he had chances of winning again. Each one is each one and has their “eachonities” (motivations). If Miguel Angel Jiménez had retired early at fifty, besides his victory in the 2014 Open de España, he would have missed out on another ten in the Champions Tour, as well as 107 appearances in the DP World Tour. Moreover, in case someone measures in quantitative terms, the success story of Langer, who has tripled his earnings in the Champions compared to the PGA, would not have been such.
The PGA Tour Champions was created precisely, among other reasons, when it was identified that the golf of legends had and has its audience, that this could be capitalized on, and that, moreover, it gave an opportunity to keep golfers competitive whose performance seemed to diminish with age. A great gift for Arnold Palmer‘s 50th birthday, which he knew how to capitalize on by adding ten more victories to his career. The other two kings also scored a good number of victories in the era when they started to have more grey hairs, but not with less desire: ten for Nicklaus and 19 for the Black Knight, who, by the way, at 89 years old maintains a physical form that some of the forty-somethings who tee off every Sunday at their club would envy. Not to mention that anyone’s dream would be to still be able to sign, like him, two scorecards at the Masters in Augusta at 73 years old, even if they were with a total of 161 strokes. Coincidentally, the same strokes that also prevented the Chilean Toto Gana (a very appropriate but not prophetic surname for a player) from making the cut in 2017 at his 19 years. Surely you are good understanders, and therefore this reflection is a thousand words too many.
However, the circuit itself has a bias of micro edagolfism because it seems to pigeonhole veterans into a senior circuit on the understanding that they cannot compete in the main one. Who doesn’t think that, precisely, part of the romanticism and aura surrounding the Masters has to do with the possibility of seeing “old glories” and young potential future dominators of world golf compete together and on equal terms? Master José María Olazábal, from here I beg you, knee bent to the ground, to fight for it and join Fred Couples, Bernard Langer, and Tommy Aaron to complete the poker of aces who have managed to make the cut at the Masters at 63 years old. Surely, others will want to follow that trail, and an interest will be awakened in which age is also considered a factor to measure merit. Because, dear Rory, according to the phrase attributed to Mark Twain, we do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing, and if you don’t believe us, you can continue listening to Andrew Huberman‘s podcast.
