As golfers age, eventually they lose distance. That’s a normal progression, although that doesn’t mean it’s any less maddening.
But while things like your putting, chipping, driving accuracy — and maybe even your mental game — improve as you get older, it’s hard to hit the ball longer than you did before.
But that doesn’t mean you have to simply kiss that distance goodbye. You have options, people!
We asked Shawn Callahan, a GOLF Top 100 Teacher who works out of Monroe Golf Club (Pittsford, N.Y.) and Abacoa Golf Club (Jupiter, Fla.), to identify the best thing aging golfers can do to prevent distance loss.
Change their swings? Lift weights? Pray to the golf gods?
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“You need to get mobile. You need flexibility, but joint mobility is almost more important,” said Callahan, while at GOLF’s Top 100 Teachers Retreat last month. “You need joint mobility before you get flexibility. But the faster you can move, the farther you can hit it. And anybody can do that; you can get help with that. Easy stuff. It’s just a matter of getting your hips and shoulders to be able to move.”
Callahan said simply walking is a great mobility exercise, but it’s important to take it a step further and focus on things like CARs, which stands for Controlled Articular Rotations. CARs are essentially active, rotational movements of the joints that will increase your mobility and improve joint health. (Good joint mobility can also help prevent elderly people from falling, Callahan says.)
Callahan said he usually doesn’t recommend something like a speed-stick training aid for older players, because getting them to swing harder might actually make things worse. But good, fundamental mobility training can make a major difference on the course.
“If you are more mobile, then you can take the club back farther, and then you can hit it farther,” Callahan said.
If you are looking for specific CARs exercises to focus on (especially ones for shoulders and hips), check out the video below.
