Apparently, I should be a poster boy for the Rascal Scooter.
This became obvious to me last week when the 71st Senior PGA
Championship came to Colorado Golf Club in Parker. After being
hired by Colorado Community Newspapers, I aided our coverage of The
International at Castle Pines for three years before it was put to
rest in 2008. So, I had walked a golf course with hills at every
turn before, but apparently not well enough.
Over the past couple years, I’ve been working on sculpting
myself into the athletic type I once was. I spent six months in
Switzerland before coming to write for CCN Sports, and all I did
there was walk. I’ve lost 45 pounds of fat, roughly, in the last 14
months, and because of this, I’m now able to actually run again
without feeling like my spleen is about to rupture.
So, when the Senior PGA Championship landed here, and I knew I
would have to serve as photographer for a couple rounds of the
event, I thought to myself, no problem. I got this. Yeah, well,
thinking and doing are two very different things when it comes to
physical fitness.
Honestly, I don’t know how these older guys do it. Not just the
senior pros either. There were a few golf fans walking the holes at
Colorado Golf Club, following their favorite players from hole to
hole the entire time, who must have been in their 90s.
When I went to shoot the first round, I walked from the No. 9
green to about the No. 7 tee box and back. I then went from the
18th green back to about the 17th tee. By the time I made it back
to the PGA’s media center, I was toast. That’s it. 10 holes
one-way, if you want to look at it that way, and I was ready to
throw myself onto a broken tee just to end it all.
And there were octogenarians among the spectators still
going.
I didn’t go far into the course the next day. I was in a lot of
pain by then. Sore, more like. I did a lot better by the time we
had to shoot the final round Sunday. Still, I was trying to be a
little cautious.
I started to think about all these people, spectators, around me
who were excited to walk the entire course with guys like Fred
Couples, most commonly talked about, Tom Lehman and a couple
others. I finally asked someone about it. Mark. He was from
California, but he had family in Colorado, making the opportunity
for a mini-vacation to hit the Senior PGA Championship easy. The
final round was the only day he was attending.
Mark was an avid golfer and was used to the walking. I’m sure
most of the crowds were also, but I still couldn’t get it out of my
head that the event could much easily be watched on television, and
you’d get to see more great putts and whatnot from the TV media’s
coverage. Mark could tell I wasn’t a very big golf fan.
“What’s your favorite sport?” he asked me.
“Hockey,” I said.
“Would you want to watch hockey on TV, or would you rather be
there to see it in person?”
“Touche,” I said. He had a point. However, in my defense, at no
time during the senior major would you see Fred Couples get called
for boarding Tom Lehman into the glass. Nor would you ever see
David Frost throw down his golf glove and pull Michael Allen’s polo
over his head to start beating him senseless. So, maybe hockey
isn’t the best comparison.
Later in the day, I saw some guys from South Metro Fire and
Rescue on bicycles, cruising the course for anyone who needed
health aid. I asked them if anyone, as far as they knew, had a
problem walking the hills at Colorado Golf Club. They knew of none.
So, I guess I was the only one out there experiencing a heart
flutter.
Kidding aside, what’s missed from watching pro golf on TV
compared to actually being there was the energy from the crowd,
especially when one of the leaders would go for a birdie and miss
by inches. The crowd responses were far more entertaining and fun
to be a part of than anything else there, in my opinion.
With that, I mean no offense, Colorado Golf Club. Your links are
gorgeous, but next time I’m looking for exercise, I’ll just jog to
the library. Hopefully, I’ll be in better shape when I’m 90.
