1:33Scott McCarron went three years without taking golf seriously after leaving UCLA before he attended the 1991 Raley's Senior Gold Rush, a now-defunct event on the Champions Tour.
McCarron, then 26, noticed a handful of players using long, broomstick-length putters and decided to give one a try the next morning while playing hooky from work.
His success with that putter helped fuel a successful PGA career. All these years later, he's the newest addition to the Champions Tour and realizes the time is now to cement his place among golf's best players 50 and older.
"Sometimes I have to pinch myself that so many years have gone by and I'm still playing well," he said.
McCarron turned 50 on July 10, and his first taste of the Champions Tour came last week at the Senior British Open. Marco Dawson wound up winning, becoming the 11th player aged 50 or 51 to cash the winner's check this season.
In more than 1,000 events in Champions Tour history, 75.4 percent of winners are younger than 55.
"Guys play their best when they're first coming out on this tour," said two-time U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen, who turns 51 in August and won his first Champions Tour event in February. "When you're 25-30 [on the PGA Tour], you don't look at it as your skills are diminishing or you're running out of time. When you're 50, we're already past that threshold where your body is losing muscle every year. You have to work that much harder to maintain where you were."
For most Champions Tour players, the most trusted item in their golf bag is a bottle chock full of ibuprofen tablets. Janzen pointed out the one-sided nature to the game of golf, the same few motions over and over on the driving range, in practice rounds and during competition.
