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A Championship For The Ages: 40-And Older Players Fill Out Field

By Ken Klavon, USGA

Ocala, Fla. – The empirical data suggests that the graybeards, so to speak, have taken over the 24th U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur.

Noreen Mohler took 20 years off from competitive golf while taking care of a family and a business. (Robert Walker/USGA)

After all, of the 132 players in the field this week at Golden Hills Golf and Turf Club, 40 are under the age of 40. That amounts to 30 percent of the field. For a championship that is open to female players 25 or older, should that warrant concern?

Not so much after more than 10 players in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s were canvassed Friday. All of them had different perspectives on the dearth of younger players. Most important, none felt the mid-amateur golfer was a dying breed.

For starters, several dynamics through the years have helped skew the numbers upward. Players coming out of college have viable distractions that oftentimes have taken them on different paths, affecting the Women’s Mid-Amateur field.

Households that require two incomes, motherhood, failed attempts on the professional circuit, the recent down-surge in the economy, among other things, have kept them away.

Seven-time USGA champion Carol Semple Thompson, 60, who happens to be the oldest player this week, thought the trend could be compared to the aging baby-boomer population.

Thompson, a lifelong amateur, has witnessed a change in the game since her 1973 U.S. Women’s Amateur victory. Agents then were virtually non-existent. Today’s prodigies are inundated with empty promises of riches if they turn professional coming out of high school. Too many ultimately get burned out, don’t make it or get tired of chasing unfulfilled dreams and then become a reinstated amateur.

“I think it’s the graying of the amateur golfer,” she said. “Perhaps those playing the most amateur golf are the senior players. Lifestyles have changed. Younger players are working or raising families.”

Thompson could have been describing Noreen Mohler’s life path. Mohler, next year’s USA Curtis Cup captain, came out of “retirement” a couple of years ago to rediscover a gift that hadn’t left her. After raising a family and investing time, sweat and money into a restaurant business with her husband, the reinstated amateur had gone 20 years between playing in competitive events. It didn’t show in Mohler's first U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur appearance last fall, when she advanced to the semifinal round.

Mohler, who returned to competitive golf three years ago, has excelled late because she’s added more perspective to her life. It could be opined that perspective equals wisdom and maturity.

“I’m almost feeling like I’m playing as well as when I did when I was 25,” said Mohler, a semifinalist in the 1975 U.S. Amateuer and member of the 1978 USA Curtis Cup team. “If I was 25 and I had a bad round, it would stay with me. As you get older, there’s more to life than a golf score.”

Forty-three-year-old Kathy Hartwiger, the 2002 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion, echoed the same sentiments. There was a time the golf clubs accumulated dust as she gave birth to and raised her two children.  Recently she lost her father, 68-year-old Bill Ahern, which provided her with a new outlook. She said she’s not defined by a golf score and won’t be.

What’s more, that maturity in many ways has made Hartwiger and other 40-and-older players better. It’s taken the pressure off. With an increased focus on fitness, better instruction and equipment, there are more reasons for the older players to hang around.

“Ask all of us who are 40 and over, if we learned from what we knew then to what we know now,” said Hartwiger, “many of us would probably say we’re better players now. There seems to be a maturity that has taken place.”

Mohler, Semple Thompson and 2004 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion Corey Weworski agreed that technology has furthered their careers. “It’s also meant there are no slackers here,” said Weworski.

For two-time Women’s Mid-Amateur champion Meghan Stasi (formerly Bolger), she eschewed the professional game coming out of Tulane, instead channeling her efforts into coaching at the collegiate level at the University of Mississippi. A couple of years ago she had visions of turning pro, going so far as entering LPGA Tour Qualifying School. When that didn’t pan out, she rededicated herself to amateur aspirations. In 2008, she was the lone mid-amateur on the USA Curtis Cup team.

“I didn’t get to play that much, if at all, when I was coaching,” said Stasi, one of 23 players in their 30s in the field. “Now it’s my turn to play.

“I think between the ages of 25 and 40, a lot of the girls out of college turn pro or they’re still trying to pursue a professional career and they get burnt out on golf. … But a lot of the ladies playing here have played for so long that some are professional amateurs.”

After coaching at the University of Mississippi and getting married, Meghan Stasi (right) remained an amateur. (Steven Gibbons/USGA)

Added Mohler: “We’re empty-nesters. We can come here and compete without the worries of who’s taking care of the kids.”

Twenty-nine year-old Christy Schultz of Rochester, N.Y., competed against contemporaries Natalie Gulbis and Lorena Ochoa while playing for Purdue’s women’s golf team. However, she determined that her game probably wouldn’t hold up against the rigors of the professional life and opted to find a full-time job, get married and start a family. The golf bug never fully left and she’s made it a point to compete in the Women’s Mid-Am, where she's making her third appearance.

As a representative for a pharmaceutical company, golf has become the pebble that slowly drifts toward the bottom of the sea of priorities.

“I try to save up as many vacation days for this,” said Schultz, one of 17 20-something players in the field. “Then, depending on how far you go, you’re definitely taking more time off.”

When Reana Yun, 25, of Glendale, Calif., went to Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach of her home state to qualify, she noticed the generation gap the minute she got on the tee. “Surprising,” she said.

The former UC-Irvine player wasn’t intimidated because the older players treated her like a kid sister. It helped take the pressure off.

Little did she know then, but it was an introduction to what she’d experience at her first Women’s Mid-Amateur. On Friday, she was nervous preparing for the start on Saturday. It was just the first step of hopefully turning pro if she can get her game where she wants it to be. In fact, after college she went to graduate school to get her teaching certificate as a backup plan. Golf had been put on the backburner.

“A lot of players I played with in junior golf have turned pro,” said Yun. “I kept my amateur status because it didn’t seem like there were a lot of events I could play in as a pro.”

When Bruce Fleisher and Hale Irwin joined the Champions Tour, both believed that the window of opportunity to win the U.S. Senior Open, let alone any major at that level, was infinitesimal. If a player didn’t win between the ages of 50-56, chances were they’d be on the outside looking in. 

Could that theory be applied to the Women’s Mid-Amateur – that the window of opportunity to win closes by the time a competitor reaches a certain age?

Forty-five-year-old Virginia Derby Grimes won the 1998 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at age 34. She understood the hypothesis, but didn’t fully believe it would apply at this championship.

Derby Grimes added that growing older has afforded more life lessons. Instead of “beating balls” for the sake of hitting balls like she used to do at 25, she now spends minutes working on a part of her game or going through drills.

Still, had there not been an emphasis on fitness over the past decade, the 40-and-older gang probably wouldn’t be considered a threat, she said. The competitive fires burn stronger than ever.

“You still have to go and play,” she said.

Ken Klavon is the USGA's Editor of Digital Media. E-mail him with questions or comments at kklavon@usga.org.