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Augusta, Ga., April 7, 2007 — By PGA Tour standards, Vijay Singh is an old man. At 44 in the Age of Tiger Woods, he should be counting his pension assets and preparing to break Hale Irwin's Champions Tour record of 45 wins. He shouldn't be staying on the range all hours of the night, making busy work for the Augusta National grounds crew.
Every time I see him on the practice range — beating balls with a glove jammed in his left armpit — I think of a man who keeps working because he believes he'll die if he stops. When the PGA Tour set up its retirement plan in 1983, I'm sure they didn't have Singh in mind. Back then a player at his age was on his way to some club job in Sarasota or a mini-tour. With 19 wins after the age of 40, including two this season, he may win on the regular tour until he's eligible at 62 for a monthly social security check.
Yes, he's doing a job on all of us — taking a good-paying gig from an able-bodied young man. Two back of the leaders at even par going into Saturday's third round of the Masters, where he won in 2000, the man from Fiji is poised to win his second Green Jacket. The kids hoping to join him next year at the champion's dinner are stronger, thinner, and less gray at the temples, but they don't have his 25 years of globetrotting in places like Lusaka, Zambia. How many forty-somethings think they can win the Masters?
Sure, Jack won at Augusta in 1986 when he was 46, but it was a miracle. He hadn't won a tournament in two years, a major in six and was 160th on the PGA Tour money list. Jack wasn't back. He had done what a grandfather sometimes does to the grandson on the Chessboard — give the boys a lesson. If you want to see how a forty-something should play at Augusta, look no further than Seve Ballesteros, who shot 86-80 this week. The two-time champion simply played his age.
Sam Snead managed to win 17 times after he turned 40, but he played in an era when 45 was considered old in America and men like Byron Nelson had the good sense to go do something else with their lives. Slammin' Sam had some of that Cocoon water. A 45-year old Hale Irwin had to make a 45-foot bomb to win the 1990 U.S. Open and survive a 19-hole playoff against a journeymen golfer named Mike Donald.
Sometimes hanging on is just hanging out because you don't lose your spot on the team. Unlike many formerly great players past their prime, Singh gets into every tournament on his present standing in the world ranking and money list. He has no ceremonial golf on his resume.
Arnie and Seve and Tom Watson, and just about anybody who won, was done after they turned 40. Just ask Jay Haas: playing well at 49 and 50 gets you into the Ryder Cup and the majors, but it doesn't mean you're going to win a regular Tour event. Ray Floyd won Doral in 1992 when he was 49 and made the '91 Ryder Cup. But he wasn't the man.
Alas, all good pros can summon the old magic every once in awhile, but no one has ever done it as consistently and with as much success as Vijay Singh. On Sunday, all of us might be calling 44 the New Prime if Singh can again prove that age is just a number.
