Why Old Golfers Are Doing Better Than Ever

Forty year old Catriona Matthew won her first LPGA major championship this evening at Royal Lytham & St. Anne's in the Ricoh Women's British Open.  Matthew's win comes just two weeks after 59 year old Tom Watson stunned the world in nearly becoming the oldest golf major champion in history. 

Watson's Turnberry effort came just about four months after 48 year old Kenny Perry almost stole the title of oldest major champion from Julius Boros at the Masters.

Kenny Perry followed up on the adventure of Greg Norman at Birkdale, in which Norman redefined what was possible for the fifty-plus set.  At age 53, Norman held the 54 hole lead in the Open Championship befored ultimately ceding the title to Padraig Harrington.

These are just extreme examples of older players achieving greatness much later into their careers than even they were expecting.  The general trend on the PGA Tour, though, suggests that older golfers are faring much better in the Tiger Woods era than they ever have.

Since Tiger turned pro in 1996, the PGA Tour has seen an average of a little over 9 winners each season that are over the age of 40.  2003 was the pinnacle of the trend to date.  That season, 15 players over the age of 40 won on the PGA Tour, including 50 year old Craig Stadler.

Though a 50 year old player winning on Tour is rare, there are a number of players in their forties that have made the careers in that decade.  Vijay Singh is one of the greatest players in PGA Tour history because of his performance after the age of forty.  He has 22 of them.  Third on that list is Kenny Perry, who has won five times in the last two seasons alone.

Seemingly a few times per season, Freddy Couples contends in a PGA Tour event.  When his back is healthy and he is particularly interested in playing well, Boom Boom can hop in the time machine.  Woody Austin came back to life in 2007 at age 43 in Memphis.  Mark Calcavecchia won in '07 at the PODS Championship at age 46.  He had a nice run at Turnberry as well.

It may seem like old hat, but the cliche is that golf is a sport for men in their mid-thirties.  Golfers are supposed to start winning majors around 32.  PGA Tour history shows that the vast majority of winners on Tour are in their thirties.  Since 1960, 52% of winners on the PGA Tour are in their 30s.  Just 12% are 40 or older.

That cliche may be shifting, though.  Since 1997, 20% of winners on the PGA Tour are older than 40.  That is over a 50% increase in the percentage of winners over 40 on Tour in the last dozen seasons.  For as easy as it is to sprinkle extreme examples and familiar names, data from nearly 600 PGA Tour events suggest that older players are faring better now than ever.

With that established, why are the old geezers doing better?  Here's the controversial part.  Follow me on this.

Tiger Woods - now with 69 PGA Tour wins - is an aberration.  Clearly, at 33 years of age, he has won only in his 20s and 30s.  Take Woods' victories away from the 569 PGA Tour events since 1997, and the 40-plus set has won more than 22% of PGA Tour events.

Tiger plays a part in this theory, though.  The 1997 PGA Tour television contract was negotiated by Commissioner Tim Finchem on the back of Tiger's potential.  That contract set the stage for ever increasing tournament purses and brought the kind of money to professional golf that only the Major League Baseball Players' Association could negotiate. 

Winning was still important, but losing was not so bad.  That meant that the blow of losing to Tiger was softened with a six figure paycheck.  Players realized that they would be losing to Woods for many years to come.  They grew to accept the reality and the boost to their bank account, despite the obvious glass ceiling.  Then the WGCs came along with the promise of a nice five figure payday just for stopping by to try the Tiger Woods dunk tank.

Players that came along on the Tour in the Tiger Era grew up losing to him.  For the better part of their careers to date, they have accepted (though unhappily) that their careers would pale in comparison to Woods'.  Now, they're in their mid-30s and finally hitting their stride as they should.  Players in their 30s still win a little over half of PGA Tour events. 

Now, young guys win at a much lower clip.  They win just under 30% of PGA Tour events.  Historically, they win near 35%.  These are the players that were in their teens when Woods was just getting going.  They grew up watching him stomp on field after field and hoist trophy after trophy.  They grew up with the AJGA, Nationwide Tour, and a much deeper pool of talent than ever.  Winning became tougher from even a young age.  Players that found their way to the PGA Tour now have less experience in winning golf tournaments than ever.  That makes winning on the biggest stage in golf even tougher.

Meanwhile, golfers that are older - in their late 30s, 40s, and even 50s - grew up playing golf in a less organized system.  They had fewer junior events.  There were fewer players, less competition.  Sure, the talent pool was not as deep, but this generation of golfers had more experience in winning.  As Tiger's father Earl would have said, there is great value in learning how to win, regardless of the competition.  Learning how to win is almost as important as being good.  Feeling the pressure and the moment breeds champions, not just a mechanically perfect swing.

In other words, older golfers have more experience winning to harken on when the pressure-packed moments come.  They may have had fewer players to beat, but they did beat them.  And there's a lot of value in that - way more than that cozy check for second place.

Meanwhile, the European Tour has been getting younger since 1997.  With more money and steadier sponsorship, the European Tour experienced serious talent drain for the last decade.  In place of Europe's best came a new generation of Europeans that turned pro and learned how to win against a deflated European Tour.  It paved the way for players like Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, and others.  The collective youth movement on the European Tour has yielded three amateur champions on the European Tour in the last few seasons.  It has created superstars out of teenagers like Rory McIlory.  These kids did not grow up getting beaten by Tiger every week.  They left that to their older players and took advantage of Tiger's and their absence by winning golf tournaments.  It is yet to translate into major championships, but has yielded some serious whoopings at Ryder Cups.

It is that spirit of competition and experience that enables players like Tom Watson and Kenny Perry and Vijay Singh to thrive at the latter stages of their career.  For the younger set, it now takes extra seasoning to get in contention enough times on the PGA Tour to finally win.  It is very well possible that Tiger Woods has unintentionally set back the next generation of golf by five or ten years just due to the average age of PGA Tour winner.  The sport wins now financially and in terms of attention, but may be left with an era of fledgling pros when he leaves.