It’s not about the bike, or the golf. It’s all about a stubborn refusal to grow old.
At age 37, Lance Armstrong shifts into a higher gear and races toward a showdown in the Alps at the Tour de France.
Then, 59-year-old Tom Watson tees it up at the British Open and not only turns back the clock, but smacks it straight down the middle of the fairway.
Men acting like boys, playing better than their birth certificates should allow.
And isn’t that precisely why we love them?
When any American male between 35 and 60 looks in the mirror this morning, it’s a little easier to ignore that bald spot for a moment or temporarily erase the wrinkles when there’s that winning smirk of Armstrong or the Tom Sawyer smile of Watson beaming back at you.
Two old fogies have stolen the sports headlines.
Can Watson or Armstrong possibly pull off a con job on Father Time?
Maybe sports never grow old because we never know when the impossible will happen next.
When Watson beats up the links at Turnberry, Scotland, with a 65, is it more impressive to say he shot 5 strokes under par or 6 over his age?
There are still plenty of birdies in Watson’s game. But he won’t get up and sing his own praises with any newfangled technology. Watson is so old he doesn’t know how to tweet. And don’t expect a man who has won more major championships than Arnold Palmer to start learning how to brag on himself now.
For the millions of Baby Boomers who have ever played air guitar to the rock anthem by The Who that declared “Hope I die before I get old,” it is already half past the time to conveniently redefine what Pete Townshend actually meant when he penned the lyrics way back in 1965. Because raging on certainly beats the alternative, and that’s true for whatever generation you’re talking about. So we cheer for athletes who refuse to get — or at least act — old.
Armstrong certainly lives by forever-young principles that would do Peter Pan proud. Does the most celebrated cyclist on the planet take great pain in a steadfast refusal to grow up? Well, that certainly makes his Texas playboy image cultivated on the arm of Sheryl Crow, Kate Hudson or Ashley Olsen a little easier to explain.
While I certainly understand and appreciate how Armstrong has become a let’s-wear-yellow saint of hope for everybody who has fought or been touched by cancer, it removes the pedestal from beneath Lance’s feet to see him for what he really is: A middle-aged man pedaling as fast as he can, because nothing makes a guy feel more alive than whatever gets the heart pounding.
Why settle for living on memories when there’s still the chance of history being made today?
This British Open is being played at the same seaside course where Watson outdueled Jack Nicklaus in 1977 on a sunny day of golf so big and vivid it burns brightly in the memory of anybody who witnessed it more than 30 years ago.
After signing a scorecard for this installment of the fabled tournament, however, Watson spoke to a lot of us graying weekend warriors when he told the media: “I don’t live in the past.”
Rather than get all weepy nostalgic, Watson would rather ponder the great unknown of what drama awaits him in the here and now.
During the past week, after hopping off his bike, Armstrong said he was not the same rider who has won the Tour seven consecutive times. But, in his mind, that does not mean it’s impossible to capture an eighth championship while he comes roaring out of retirement.
In fact, Armstrong hints he is having so much fun there might be another spin around France in 2010 left in his legs.
Can they win? The calendar and logic shout no.
An ageless golfer and relentless cyclist are both grown men old enough to know better.
But they remain too defiantly young to admit it.
So Watson and Armstrong rage on.
Sound like any guy you know?
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com
