Can you really play your best golf in your fifties? This two-time European Legends Tour winner is living proof you can
What has kept me going is this desire to continue to want to hit good golf shots. That’s what I had in me when I was six years old starting to play golf. I just loved hitting the golf ball up in the air and out of the centre of the clubface. I feel like if I can continue to strive for that great feeling off the clubface, seeing the ball sail off into the distance at the target, that’ll always keep me successful. The competitiveness just comes down to who you are.
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I really didn’t know where I would fit in on the senior tour. But as we’ve seen in the start of this year, I’ve been able to get a couple of wins and play really well. And it’s proven to me mentally now that I’m very capable of having a successful career.
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In my early 40s, I started to think more seriously about the senior tour. And, as you get to your mid-40s, you start to lose a sense of competitiveness on the main tours. From 45 to 50 I was playing golf courses that were all about length off the tee and set up over-the-top difficult. It makes you feel like you’re not competitive. That was the hardest thing to handle in those years.
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From the age of 40 I put myself through 10 years of pretty intense fitness training in the gym, knowing that I was probably past my best golf on the European Tour. I thought that if I could dedicate part of my life to fitness training, I could be in the best shape possible by the time I started playing senior golf.
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I didn’t want to get to senior golf and not be strong. I wasn’t after any length, I wasn’t after changing my golf swing to be faster or anything like that – I wanted to leave my golf game alone. I just wanted to arrive at senior golf being physically strong. I was doing some really heavy lifting to get myself strong and it’s worked really well.
Richard Green: Two-time 2022 European Legends Tour winner AGE: 51 HOMETOWN: Melbourne
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There’s certainly a strength level I have to accept when I train now. I can’t lift the same weights that I used to lift in my early 40s. It’s just one of those things you have to accept. But you’re better off doing something than nothing.
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Bernhard Langer and some of these guys I’ve been playing with this year, they’ve still got that same cunning, competitive spirit they’ve always had. And I feel like I’ve still got that in me, too. I want to exercise that and it’s nice to be out there with guys like that who still want to play to their very best. Even in my main tour career and my Australian tour career, I have always wanted to perform at a high level and strive for it.
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You learn the triggers along the way. That’s what benefits guys like Bernhard Langer, who’s always been a really tough competitor, mentally very good and has had a career of experiencing winning. And also failing and losing at times – which you have to in golf. You’ve got to learn from those. The more experienced you are, the better you get eventually.
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It’s 25 years since I won the Dubai Desert Classic. Back then I was young, relatively inexperienced, but full of drive and determination like you can’t believe. I probably won in Dubai out of just absolute, utter aggression and desire to win. In that mental state, you will things to happen. Whereas, in my winning state of mind now, I am more patient, experienced and understanding of the situation I am in. The difference is just experience. When I was 25 and just striving to make a career out of my game, I did it through utter determination.
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My own goals are the only battle, really. I want to get on the Champions Tour and that’s the biggest test coming up. I’ve got to face an event at the end of the year where there are only four spots to qualify. And there are a lot of good players lining up to try to take one of those spots. It’s all about my own pressure and my own battle, understanding how I deal with pressure and how I deal with certain situations going forward.
