Let’s count the reasons why the senior pro tour’s fascinating characters should get more love | Golf news and tour information

The Charles Schwab Cup Championship, the season-ending highlight of the PGA Tour Champions, will be decided this weekend and I’ll be watching, ready to be inspired.

I realize that such exuberance sounds as out of place as Navin Johnson’s character in “The Jerk” running around shouting, “The new phone books are here!”, though quoting a 1979 comedy probably only reinforces the suspicion that this senior golf fanatic is probably an old man who is out of touch.

I will argue that the label is only half correct, but I understand. At a time when professional golf is obsessed with “improving the product,” you don’t hear much praise for the round-belly tour, with its carts, sparse crowds, too many Joe Secondchances and not enough big names. Sure, it was a great idea in 1980, but it reached its peak during the Trevino-Nicklaus confrontations in the early 1990s.

So let me be clear about my expected source of inspiration.

Long before I was a senior, I was captivated early by the senior tour for its cavalcade of living golf history and for its artful swings and shots. That affinity has deepened over the years. For me at least, the more you start thinking about things that matter, the more the PGA Tour Champions provide answers.

I don’t care who wins the Schwab Cup, and not because the $2 million bonus is a pittance in today’s professional golf dollars. It’s that I know that no matter who wins, it will give meaning to that player, and to me, in a way that is unique to professional senior golf.

It is satisfying to keep doing what you love and what you are good at, as long as you can remain good enough. So that all the successes that occur towards the end will remain as one of the most satisfying memories.

“Oh yeah, winning again, or just playing well, it definitely means more as you get older,” said Rocco Mediate, who won the Furyk and Friends last month at the age of 61, which has helped him grow over time. delivered a tour-sanctioned victory. of five decades. “In the wider golf world our tour may be overlooked, but in our world we see ourselves as highly relevant. Because we’re fighting against time in this insanely difficult game, but it’s such a good fight to be in, and you just appreciate that you can still do it.”

That even applies to the tour’s bigger stars. At the age of 53, Padraig Harrington, who with senior golf as a platform has become one of the most important players on the Internet and in his interviews, should continue to win for several more years thanks to his zeal for the game and emphasis on increasing of the game’s popularity. his swing speed. His joyful approach is captured in the favorite words of his late instructor, Bob Torrance, who said on the way to the practice range, “Remember, these are the happiest days of your life.”

“There is a wonderful ‘hope’ value in golf,” Harrington told Brian Keogh of the Irish Independent in June, on the eve of his induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame. “From the moment I start shooting, no matter how bad it went yesterday, if I lost the tournament or whatever, from the moment I start making shots, I’m in this beautiful place with opportunities and I hope I’m just looking forward, and I love it.

“I love that ending. I know I can’t do it at my age, but I still set out every day to find the secret. And you know, I say it sometimes. ‘What else would I do?’ But actually this is exactly what I want to do.”

Bernhard Langer, as concise as Harrington is eloquent, has become the model for the senior trip. If there’s any justice, his record of 46 career PGA Tour Champions victories – currently the most underrated milestone in golf – should age even better than he has at age 67. Asked thousands of times to explain how he did it, his best answer is a serious one: “I think I like golf.”

It’s the same reason why many of his peers believe that Tiger Woods, if he’s even physically capable, will play senior golf after he turns 50 late next year. None other than Jack Nicklaus opined that if Woods decides to play, “he will absolutely kill everyone.” Woods’ main goal would be to win the US Senior Open and break his tie (at nine) with Bobby Jones for the most USGA titles. In 2023, Woods suggested he would use a cart for the PGA Tour Champions, saying: I’ve got three years (before) I get the little buggy and hit the road with Fred (Couples). If Woods comes out, it will immediately dispel any potential doubters among private equity investors at PGA Tour Enterprises about the viability of the 50-and-plus tour.

Woods’ affinity for hitting old-school shots would also be a reflection of the glory of what the tour’s grizzled warriors do best.

“Our tour is uncomfortably talented,” says Mediate. “You see it with Padraig and Ernie (Els), but also with the older boys who don’t go far, but have a lot of tricks. We improvise and come up with shots – bend it, bounce it, change the speed – to get it around and score. You actually have to play more golf in your round than regular tour players. Look at Bernhard, he only goes 100 miles per hour and he won the US Senior Open last year, the hardest tournament we play, to break that record. He’s a brilliant player, and so are a lot of the guys here.”

So join this old man and take senior golf. You can learn a lot about golf, a little about life, and chances are you’ll be inspired.