I recently gave a speech celebrating the good fortune of being a senior golfer. It seems to have resonated well beyond that evening. This adaptation is offered in the hope that, no matter what your age, you’ll find something that strikes a chord.
Let’s be honest—we’ve all hit the jackpot. Not just in life, but in golf.
If you were lucky enough to discover this maddening, magnificent game sometime in the last half-century, then you’ve been part of a golden age—maybe the golden age—of golf and everything surrounding it. A convergence of culture, timing, technology, and sheer good fortune has made our golf lives richer, deeper, and more thrilling than any generation before us could have imagined.
We came of age in an era of open doors. We missed the misery of the Great Depression and the terror of global war. Instead, we were born into an endless American summer of abundance and promise. College was affordable. Jobs were plentiful. Home ownership was achievable. Retirement was plausible. And we’ve watched the Dow Jones skyrocket from under 1,000 to over 40,000.
Modern medicine cured polio just in time for our childhood, came up with the birth control pill and Viagra at our convenience, and now offers robotic knee and hip replacements to help us amble down the fairways of our dotage.
Culturally, our timing was equally impeccable. We grew up with The Beatles and Motown, matured with Dylan and Springsteen. We saw TV evolve from three channels to 3,000 and witnessed the evolution from Ed Sullivan to Saturday Night Live, Leave it to Beaver to Modern Family, Gunsmoke to Yellowstone, and Lassie to Paw Patrol. And now we have streaming services that put it all at our fingertips.
We witnessed both the first moon landing and the first personal computer. We raised kids, and now grandkids, in a world that gave us both rotary dial and iPhones, vinyl and Spotify, road maps and GPS, handwritten letters and Zoom calls. We’ve spanned not just two centuries but two millennia—and we’ve lived through 14 presidents, nine popes, and, maybe most impressively, seven James Bonds.
Bottom line, we showed up at the party just as the drinks were being poured, the music was getting good, and the buffet was fully stocked. For half a century, we’ve partied hearty—and soon we’ll be heading home without having to do any of the cleanup. If that’s not perfect timing, I don’t know what is.
And through it all, there was golf. Glorious, grounding, soul-saving golf—and it may be the biggest jackpot of all.
What’s remarkable is that golf, like many of us, came of age in the 1960s. Back then, the PGA Tour was still a kind of traveling circus—modest purses, limited TV, and only the top players making a decent living. Then the game caught fire. Arnold Palmer became a national phenomenon—charismatic, fearless, impossibly cool. Golf and television fell in love with each other. Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player joined Arnie to form the “Big Three,” and a savvy lawyer turned-agent named Mark McCormack began marketing golf pros like rock stars.
In short order, those stars realized their value. They broke away from the PGA of America, launched their own tour, and installed one of their own—Deane Beman—as commissioner. Beman had vision. He built smart alliances with TV, corporate America, and charities, and before long, the Tour’s annual revenue exploded—from four million dollars in 1974 to 260 million in 1995 (en route to the $2 billion of today). Golf lost its innocence and found its mojo—got organized, got serious, and got rich—just as many Americans did.
Meanwhile, we golf nuts—whether we were diehards or weekend warriors—struck gold. We witnessed greatness: Palmer, Nicklaus, and Player. Trevino, Miller, and Watson. Seve and Crenshaw. Faldo and Floyd. Norman and Strange. The list goes on. Today, over half of the members of the World Golf Hall of Fame are players from the 1970s and 1980s. By any measure, it was golf’s greatest generation.
A few months ago, we all watched Rory McIlroy win the Masters and complete the career Grand Slam, and a wonderful moment that was. But think about this: Many of us have been around for not just one but eight Grand Slams—one each by McIlroy and Player and three each by Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. That’s not just history—that’s our history. Can you believe how lucky we’ve been to witness the full majesty of both Nicklaus and Woods? And now, as an encore, we get to enjoy the brilliance of Scottie Scheffler and the deep pack of talented players chasing him.
When Arnie and company began slowing down, the Senior Tour arrived, giving us even more years to cheer our heroes. Around the same time, thanks to the confluence of Title IX, the feminist movement, and a superstar named Nancy Lopez, women’s golf found its voice—and its stage.
Meanwhile, a global boom in golf course construction during the 1990s brought us spectacular new places to play, while at the same time hundreds of posh golf-centric retirement communities popped up and readied for our arrival.
When creeping seniorhood began to erode our skills, modern technology came to the rescue. We traded persimmon woods for metal ones, unforgiving long irons for hybrids, steel shafts for graphite, and mushy balata balls that smiled back at us after we skulled them for impervious Pro V1s that added yards to our drives. No other generation—before or after ours—will ever see that kind of upgrade.
And now the wildest twist of all: golf has moved indoors. Thanks to simulators, more rounds annually today are played inside than outside—millions more. The game has split in two, the same way that skiing became skiing-and-snowboarding and tennis became tennis-and-pickleball. We now have “green golf” for the traditionalists and “screen golf” for everyone else—a quicker, cheaper, and more social game with way fewer lost balls. Currently there’s no evidence that any appreciable number of the “screenies” will ever hit the fairways, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of us graying greenies move indoors and play on home simulators. I don’t know about you, but as I rack up more and more mileage on life’s back nine, the idea of rolling out of bed and playing Pebble Beach in my pajamas, with perfect weather and no green fee, sounds like the best mulligan ever.
But here’s the real thing, my friends. However golf may evolve, it will always be more than just a game to us. For decades, it’s been our therapist and our sanctuary… our classroom and our playground… our master and our mistress… the reason we rose before dawn and lingered long after dusk.
It hasn’t just filled our weekends—it’s filled our souls.
We’ve laughed until we cried. We’ve thrown clubs and we’ve raised glasses. We’ve chased birdies and dodged doubles. We’ve met strangers on the first tee who became lifelong friends.
Golf has humbled us… it’s healed us… and it’s refused to let us grow old without a fight.
Think of the moments: the early-morning putt tracking across a dew-covered green… the impossible shot you knew you shouldn’t try—yet somehow pulled off… the round that was more about the conversation than the score… the twilight walk up 18, your shadow stretched long, beside a friend who knows your story by heart.
We played when we should’ve been working. We played when we should have been parenting. And we played when we had no excuse at all—other than the simple truth that golf fills a space in us that nothing else can.
And, so, here we are. Older, wiser, a little creakier to be sure, but still here. Still playing. Because this game—this beguiling, bedeviling game—still waits for us.
At sunrise.
At sunset.
In that perfect moment when the light hits the fairway just right, and the world feels—even for just a heartbeat—exactly as it should be.
So let us give thanks, my friends. Not just for the luck of our timing, but for the laughs that echo across decades.
For friendships forged in bunkers and celebrated at the 19th hole.
For memories etched in the greens behind us and the fairways ahead.
We haven’t just played this game.
We’ve lived it.
We’ve loved it.
And every swing, every story, every new round whispers the truth we’ve always known: Golf is not just a game—it’s one of life’s greatest gifts.
