One Man's Way To 'Unbreak' Ageing

Dick McCord, 96, adapted his golf game as he aged. Finding new ways to do things is what Geezer Jocks do to keep playing. Dick's story is a quick lesson in accommodating ageing, not surrendering to it.

 

By Ray Glier

HAYMARKET, Va.___It’s not just Dick McCord’s age we should marvel over as he continues to play golf into his 90s. It was his adjustment in the putting game, which made him a better golfer, that should get our attention. 

Dick, 96, doesn’t power the ball with the putter, rather his stroke resembles a pendulum, a weight that swings back and forth from a fixed point due to gravity. It is an easy draw back of the club with a slight upward tilt and then a measured strike of the ball with aim. He uses this stroke when he is closer to the hole, not on the other side of the green from the flag. 

It works. It’s one reason why McCord stayed competitive in golf into his 80s and 90s. He was losing distance on his drives as he got older, but while younger golfers hit past him off the tee, he scored with the putter. Dick said his putting improved when he switched to the pendulum swing about 15 years ago.

This is how Geezer Jocks unbreak ageing. We find new ways, new methods, new remedies to slow down the breaking of things. We don't cave. We recalibrate.

Older pickleball players develop a wicked serve to stay competitive. The 60-year old softball slugger turns into a hit-em-where-they-aint hitter. The 75-year old marathon runner settles for an occasional walk.

For McCord, accommodating for age, was finding another way to make a golf ball roll straight.

So don’t quit at whatever it is you do for sport. Adapt. And hold on.

Dick holds on tight to golf.

“I really think golf has contributed to my better life,” McCord said. “You get (yourself) out every day. It's good for you. Genetics probably has something to do with it, right? My brother is one year older than I am, but it’s not just genetics. 

“Before this injury, I played golf five or six times a week and exercised for an hour in the morning before I went out (to the course).”

McCord moved into his over-55 community west of Washington, D.C., in 2005 when he retired full-time. He walked the 18 holes for several years with a roller bag and then his wife said one day, “Get a cart.”

The exercise is so important to McCord he will not quit and leave his clubs in the garage because his game has fallen off. He was playing five days a week when he turned 96 in October. Dick will allow his buddies to toss the ball out of a sand trap, or out of the rough to keep the group moving. McCord knows he has lost something off his fastball, but like many Geezer Jocks he can push ego aside.

Dick’s allegiance is not just to golf, but fitness.

“Golf is good exercise and good entertainment, and what else would I do, sit around here,?” he said while sitting in his spacious apartment. “I've always been athletically inclined and the exercise is important to me.”

That’s why his right shoulder surgery January 15 for a rotator cuff injury is so nagging. His arm is in a sling. McCord can’t do his usual fitness routine, which includes golf, of course.

“I start physical therapy next week,” Dick said with some relief.

McCord had an exercise routine before every round of golf. It took about an hour.
 
He would lay on his back and raise his legs and look straight up at the ceiling and then right and then left.

“It kept me from getting dizzy,” Dick said.

Then he did a series of leg raises and some rolling exercises. McCord also did work with exercise bands, which strengthened his arms. 

McCord did this without a personal trainer, just in his home.

“My exercise included going down two flights of stairs and up two flights,” said Dick, who lives on the third floor.

There is an elevator, but he doesn't like to see the inside of it.

It’s a personal culture of doing things himself without a push from anybody but himself. 

In high school, Dick would join his older brother on the putting green for two or three hours a day. They got so good at it, they started putting one-handed.

Also in high school, McCord would take two opportunities for physical fitness a day, not one, like many students. Dick is unsentimental about it. Exercise was what he did, a plain truth. 

That dogma of “doing more” carried him through college at San Diego State where he was an accounting major and helped him earn two Masters degrees in the study of advanced math and economics.

McCord worked for IBM and then Rockwell on the Apollo program. Dick worked for the FBI for 20 years and was the treasurer of the local Shiners.

In 2005, McCord could play golf as much as he liked when he retired full time. He played five or six times a week almost 20 years before the shoulder pain and surgery chased him from the course.

“One of the exercises I was doing were push-ups, and that's when I noticed that my shoulder was crunching a little bit,” Dick said. “The truth was, as it was getting more sore, I went to doctor and I said, ‘What can we do?’ and he said ‘we can give you these shots and you can continue.’

“And so we tried those kind of things for about a year, and then it finally got to the point where there was nothing else they could do.”

So how long until he can swing a golf club?

Dick smiled. “They say six months,” he said. “I’m an optimist.” 

It means McCord will figure out something that will shorten the rehab and get him out on the links sooner than six months. After all, that’s what Geezer Jocks do. Adapt, manage, and unbreak ageing as long as you can. That's the secret, right? Don't let ageing break your spirit.

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