Castle Rock – On behalf of guys with more gray hair stuck in the teeth of the comb every morning and those middle-aged moms who roll out of bed at dawn to do thermal yoga, please allow me two words for 47-year-old golfer Tom Lehman.
Thank you.
Thanks for going down swinging during the final round of The International.
Thanks for being ticked off when you finished second in a playoff to Dean Wilson, who, at age 36, looks young enough to be Lehman’s son.
Thanks for reminding us there’s tangible worth in a baby boomer’s commitment to keeping the athletic spirit alive, even if nobody’s paying any of us $594,000 for jogging 3 miles after the kids board the bus for school.
“It’s just no fun finishing second. You play to win. I feel like I did, so in some way I’m proud of myself. I played to win,” Lehman said Sunday, after coming this close to his first win on Tour since 2000. He cashed a check for more than a half-million bucks when Wilson sank a birdie putt on the second hole of a playoff.
There’s nothing against Wilson, for whom victory was so fresh that he politely asked a tournament security official for etiquette tips on signing autographs, as fans congratulated him at Castle Pines Golf Club.
But anybody old enough for dental implants gritted their teeth when Lehman failed to win.
Golf is a game for life, allowing weekend warriors to feel the thrill of a competitive edge long after hanging up the football helmet or selling that old skateboard in a garage sale.
But it’s still a bummer reaching for the bifocals to read the yardage to the pin on a sprinkler head. And why do 15-foot putts seem tougher to stare down than they used to be?
Lehman feels your pain. He knows what a drag it can be growing old.
No captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team has teed it up in the matches since Arnold Palmer in 1963. It’s Lehman’s turn to lead the American team this year, but he seems very reluctant to draft himself for the competition, because he no longer trusts his putter.
“I don’t make ’em like I used to,” said Lehman, who could safely pass for older than his birth certificate states. This guy could slip on the senior tour without getting carded.
Lehman, however, can hang tough with the flat bellies. On the back nine, his friend Corey Pavin joined the gallery to cheer him on. Pavin is 46, and he won a tourney in Milwaukee within the past month.
So it can be done. Being forty-something should no longer cause the same phobia of climbing the leaderboard that it once did.
And gray lions such as Pavin and Lehman have Tiger Woods, of all people, to salute as inspiration.
“You see more guys play better later in their careers. Guys are fitter and stronger than they used to be,” said Peter Oosterhuis, who was a force from tee to green during the 1970s, when pro golfers spent more hours at the 19th hole than in the gym.
“Way back when, Gary Player was the only golfer we knew of who really worked on his fitness. But when Tiger Woods came on the scene, a lot of players realized if they were going to compete with him at all, they had to be fitter.
“Lehman looks fitter now than he did 10 years ago.”
The International, as has been explained until tourney founder Jack Vickers is blue in the face, has its own funny way of keeping score called the modified Stableford system. Lehman and Wilson each earned 34 points to force a playoff.
If good, old-fashioned stroke play had been enforced during the four rounds, however, Lehman would have been the medalist and claimed the trophy.
“Is that right?” Lehman said. “What did I shoot?”
275.
So I’m counting Lehman as the unofficial champ. Or at least the graying people’s champ.
Like lower-back pain or inheritance taxes or basketball at the YMCA where dudes fresh from college can dunk, golf is not a game of fair.
But you’ve got to keep teeing it up.
Hey, Lehman.
Thanks for going a little middle-aged crazy.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
* This story has been corrected. Because of a reporter’s error, this story incorrectly listed Dean Wilson’s age. He is 36.