Your Golf Bud
by Bud Key, Mid-Atlantic Director, TeeTime Golf Pass
Qualifying for Social Security was a startling realization that I’ve reached the age of “old” people. In protest, on my last birthday, I hiked the expert trail at Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina, appreciating the irony. Standing on a high crag, I gave Father Time an unceremonious middle-finger salute, then immediately wondered how I’d manage the climb back down.
The warning signs of aging soon followed. I traded my cowboy boots for slip-on Skechers, bought a pickleball racket, and had started nodding off in my recliner around 8:30 PM during WWII documentaries on the History Channel.
The full force of my approaching mortality hit me a few days later.
“Honey, we need to leave NOW if we want to beat the dinner crowd to Cracker Barrel,” I scolded my wife.
“Damn, you are getting old,” she retorted.
“And those streaks of gray in your hair? Nice touch,” I snapped back. Dinner was notably silent.
I desperately needed a reminder that age is just a number. Instead, I got a text from my son-in-law inviting me to play golf that weekend.
My daughter’s husband is a hard worker, smart, polite, and genuinely kind. We enjoy each other’s company, and I often joke that I won the lottery when our daughter married him. I love him like my own two sons.
We also share two key traits: we are both very competitive, and neither of us likes to lose. It’s worth noting he recently retired as a Captain from the US Army, meaning he’s still capable of rendering me unconscious in several unpleasant ways. However, he is married to my baby girl (never mind she was also an Army officer in heavy artillery), so I try not to show any weakness when we’re together.
I mentally strategized for our “friendly” match. I was confident my putting, short game, and scrambling abilities would keep the score tight. But those skills would only win the battle, not the war. As with all our previous rounds together, this one would be decided by distance and prowess off the tee. In short, who had the biggest stick.
My golf game has “matured.” These days, I shoot a respectable score by playing it safe, often relying on my trusty 3-wood to stay in the short grass. The booming drives of my youth, sometimes landing two fairways over, are gone. I sometimes miss that reckless, grip-it-and-rip-it approach. And I knew I’d probably need that old balls-to-the-wall mentality to keep up with his effortless 280-yard-plus drives. With nearly a 35-year age difference, the odds were stacked against me.
I watched him tee up confidently from the blue tees and smash his first shot over the trees on the dogleg left. “Caught it a little thin,” he said, picking up his tee, biceps bulging through his tight pullover. Showoff.
Then it was my turn. I aimed for a similar line, took a few waggles, casually complained I was stiff from the two-hour drive, and swung as hard as my brittle bones allowed. I outdrove him by five yards.
That set the tone for the rest of the round. Our tee shots were always within spitting distance. On one long par 3, his 5-iron barely cleared the bunker guarding the front edge. Feeling particularly virile, I grabbed a 7-iron and landed my ball 20 feet past the flag. “Caught it a little off center,” I mused.
So, the million-dollar question: Did I find the fountain of youth in the clubhouse bathroom? Did I cut a deal with LIV Golf (or the devil)? Did I buy an illegal driver on the dark web? Or did I discover those little blue pills work as well on the golf course as they do in the bedroom?
None of the above. I had simply figured out how to use my age to my advantage, now that I was officially old enough to move up to the senior tees.
Bud Key is TeeTime Golf Pass’s Mid-Atlantic Director and a former magazine editor with decades of golf writing experience. Your Golf Bud is his ongoing column on the game, the people who play it, and everything in between.
