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🔘 The Silver Tees: Chasing Past Glory, The Right Way and The Wrong Way
- Joe Davis
- Feb 1
- 5 min read
By Jim Penman
Jim is a 61-year-old golfer who lives in the North Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta. Originally from the UK, he settled in the Atlanta area over 20 years ago and currently plays regularly at White Columns Country Club.
I recall a fateful day about five years ago when my wife showed me a video she had just taken of me swinging a golf club at the range. It had been a while since I’d looked at my swing visually, and my immediate first impression was simple: this isn’t me.
The guy certainly bore an uncanny resemblance at first glance. Same build. Same eccentric dress sense. Unfortunately, that’s where the likeness ended. His curtailed backswing and restricted movement belonged to someone far older than the golfer I still imagined myself to be. Sadly, this was not the case.
What I was actually witnessing was something closer to a snuff video depicting my own golfing prowess — or lack thereof. How had this happened without my noticing? And more importantly, what the hell was I going to do about it?
That journey of realization — and counterplay — forms the topic of this month’s Silver Tees article.
The Metrics
Let’s start by quantifying the physical changes a Senior Golfer like myself typically experiences.
The chart below is based on swing-speed data I came across during my online research. At its simplest, it shows two things: how typical driver swing speed declines with age, and where an individual golfer ranks relative to his peers at any given stage of life.
The dashed silver lines represent the normal range in my own swing speed, which tends to fluctuate depending on how committed I am at any given time, to my golf fitness training.
My key take-aways from this data are as follows:
I’m not a long hitter. I didn’t need a chart to tell me this as my buddies remind me on an extremely regular basis; relentlessly so in fact and in a very cruel way that borders on abuse!
For golfers in general, even as we move from what I would call an “early senior” stage
(50 to 60 years old) to “mid-senior” (60+ years old) status, we typically lose something like
5 or 6 MPH in our swing speed.
When we extrapolate further into the past, the swing speed loss from “our prime years” is more like 10 MPH.
There are a lot of variables involved in predicting how swing speed relates to carry yards on an average drive, but a decent stab would be something like “a 10 MPH variation in swing speed will alter the carry distance by about 20 to 25 yards”.
So, bottom line for someone like myself – for tee shots, I’m likely carrying the ball at least 20 yards less now, than I was in my prime about 20 to 25 years ago. For a guy sat comfortably in the 30th to 40th percentile when it comes to drivingf distance, that’s a serious loss of power!
Addressing Swing Speed Issues the Wrong Way
Three seasons ago I was gaming what was then, a somewhat aging Ping G425 SFT driver. I have this same club in my bag right now. Unfortunately, however, the intervening period has been marked by several costly and ultimately futile attempts to resolve the receding distance phenomenon described above.
First, there was the somewhat ill-informed purchase of a Ping G430 Max 10k following a super high-tech fitting at my local PGA Tour Superstore.
“More forgiving” the review said.
“Higher ball flight with less spin and therefore longer” the review said.
“Sounds good, I’m all in”, I said.
I got fitted, tried different shafts, explored different lofts, did all the right things.
The result? Yes — it was longer. Maybe five to eight yards. Not nothing.
Straighter? Bulls**t!
There wasn’t a set of fairways anywhere in Georgia wide enough to accommodate my tee shots. Most practice ranges were also too narrow for me to hit driver with other people watching. Eventually, I could no longer tolerate the abuse from my friends and action needed to be taken.
Ok, a bad purchase then. It happens. Not to this extent with me previously, but it happens. A Dear John letter was composed to this beautiful driver – it isn’t you; it’s all me, I just don’t feel worthy, etc. Let’s both move on.
So, what was the remedy?
Determined not to repeat the same mistake, this time I booked a “proper” fitting at my home golf course. Two sessions later — at roughly $120 each — and nothing leapt out. In fact, most drivers felt a little worse than what I already owned.
Feeling obligated to purchase something after spending so much on fitting time, I walked away with the latest Ping offering: the G440 SFT.
I lost a few yards but at least the ball was landing in the same County from which it was struck.
Eight months later, things were… fine. Nothing more.
Then one day, purely by chance, while my latest Ping G440 SFT was getting re-gripped, I pulled the old Ping G425 SFT from storage. Instantly, I remembered the soft draw flight that had defined our previous time together.
It was an old girlfriend I should never have left.
We’re back together now. All is forgiven — most days, at least.
This, my friends, is not how you should address getting older and losing a few yards!
Addressing Swing Speed Issues the Best Way
Just for the record, I’m not suggesting there aren’t benefits to investing in equipment changes as we get older. Quite the opposite in fact — modern technology can absolutely help. Instead, what I’m advocating, based on my own experience these last few years, is that there might be more direct, effective and less expensive ways to go about addressing the issue at hand.
The numbers don’t lie – loss of swing speed is a primary concern and as we age, this is most commonly down to decreases in strength and flexibility. My previous two articles focused on some of the options available for addressing these key metrics through a commitment to Golf Fitness; as I detail in the articles, the benefits for me have been very real, so long as I stay committed.
Golf Fitness requires a different type of investment — one that’s far less exciting than buying a shiny new driver — but the return for me, has been significantly greater, in terms of my golf game but more importantly, my general quality of life.
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