A ‘secret sauce’ to playing great as you age? Major winner believes this is it

Padraig Harrington says he knows what he’d be doing if he stopped playing golf. 

And what he’d be wearing. 

And what he’d be eating. Even the flavor.

“I’d be literally sitting watching the Shopping Channel,” Harrington said, “string vest, in my jocks, chocolate ice cream stains on the vest. I’d be buying stuff and never opening it. The boxes would arrive but never get opened.” 

None of this, of course, is to say you can’t watch the Shopping Channel, just in a vest and your jocks, while eating chocolate ice cream, especially after a lengthy and successful career, which the 30-year pro and three-time major winner has achieved, and especially as you age, and Harrington has taken 53 laps around the sun. It’s easy. Or not as hard as what it takes to maintain what you once were. 

But Harrington thinks he can help with the latter. On a recent appearance on the Cookie Jar Golf podcast — which you can listen to in full here — he was asked for the “secret sauce” in maintaining your body and continuing to improve, and he’s a qualified speaker. He’s kept his distance. He’s continued to play PGA Tour events. 

His general thought? Keep fighting. Be active. Lift weights. 

Then Harrington got specific.        

You should swing hard — like no-holds barred hard — now. 

“Somebody who’s my age — 50 years of age — they’re in business, but they’ve got an eye on retirement and that they’re going to play more golf,” Harrington said on the podcast. “Well, you’re not going to enjoy your golf, you know, at 75 years of age if you’re hitting the ball 120 yards in the air. And you’re going to lose between 50 and 75. You are going to lose speed and it doesn’t matter what you do. 

“So what you got to do at 50 is push it up now in order to have a reasonable amount when you’ve got time to enjoy it, when you’re 65 years of age, retired. So I would recommend to everybody, within physical limits, they have to improve the psychological side of hitting the ball harder. So yes, go to the gym; yes, work on your technique in terms of what — you can see it on Paddy’s golf tips; there’s loads of stuff like that. But ultimately, probably once a week, you’ve got to lose inhibition and lash at the ball. So if you can lash at the ball at, say, 110 mph clubhead speed — now I mean lash at it. Get a monitor …. it’ll give you the feedback. You can lash it at 110, you’ll probably be able to swing smooth at 100.”

Really? One, one zero?

Really, Harrington said. Just swing. Don’t look where the ball goes. 

“But you say you dream at 110 — you dream 110 and making contact with the ball and hitting it straight,” he said. “I’m asking you to swing at 110 with no inhibition. I’m talking like you’re trying to fell a tree with an ax. I’m talking the most ferocious, vicious, whatever you want. Get to the top speed and then 100 mph will feel slow to you. Your problem is, you’re thinking I’ve got to make a golf swing at 110. I don’t care how you get to 110. I don’t care how you achieve it. 

“If you can get to 110, I swear to you, your golf swing will feel slow and smooth at 100. So your goal is always to break the ceiling any way possible. I’m not telling everybody to go out and slash it on the golf course. But, you know, 20 balls a week is not too much to ask for, and if you can push that ceiling up by 5, 10 mph now, you probably find that in 20 years time, you might have lost the extra ceiling, but you’re probably still at where you’re currently at. And you’d be — I can tell you what, if you could swing at 100 miles an hour when you’re 65 years of age, you’d be a king.”

Editor’s note: To listen to the complete Cookie Jar Podcast with Harrington, please click here.