Golf Question of the Week:  Can You Shoot Your Age?

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Leave it to the crafty, crusty, lefty Kiwi to show us how it’s done.

New Zealand’s Bob Charles pulled off a rather amazing feat last week at the New Zealand Open, where he not only “shot his age” in a professional competition, but did it in three consecutive rounds. Charles’ successive rounds of 68, 71 and 70 not only put the 71-year-old New Zealander on competitive footing with his generations-younger competitors in the European Tour event, but marked the first time (according to this London Telegraph article) that a golfer has ever come in three shots below his or her age in a single round.

(Even more astonishing is the fact that Charles’ feat is a bookend accomplishment more than a half century in the making: he first won the New Zealand Open back in 1954 as an 18-year-old amateur.)

OK, now back to us mere mortals. Do any of us ever think in these terms? Do we have both the game and the physical health at our “experienced” ages to pull off this feat?

Thus, today’s installment of the “Golf Question of the Week”:

Which of these accomplishments would you rather have:

1. A hole-in-one?
2. A double eagle?
3. A score that meets or beats your age?

In theory, any of these feats is attainable for the average golfer. Hole-in one? Just shank your tee shot, get a friendly carom off the Port-O-Let and let luck take over. Double eagle? Hit a good drive, nail your fairway wood on the screws (with a gale-force wind at your back) and leave the rest for the golf gods.

Shooting your age? Sure, I’ve done it, but I’ve yet to convince anyone that my real name is George Burns.

Check out these fun little facts about shooting your age, courtesy of our friends at About.com (The age-shooting records that follow take into account only those rounds played on courses of 6,000 yards or more in length.):

• The overall record for youngest golfer to shoot his age belongs to Bob Hamilton, a golf pro who shot his age of 59 at Hamilton Golf Club in Evansville, Ind., in 1975.
• The golfer who holds the age-shooting record on golf's major professional tours is Walter Morgan, playing the Champions Tour. In 2002, at age 61, Morgan shot a 60 in the AT&T Canada Senior Open Championship.
• On the PGA Tour, the record belongs to Sam Snead. Slammin' Sam fired a 67 at the Quad Cities Open in 1979, when he was 67 years old. Then he set a new record a day later, shooting 66.
• The oldest golfer to shoot his age was 103-year-old Arthur Thompson of Victoria, British Columbia.
• Thompson was playing the Uplands Golf Club in Victoria when he accomplished the feat in 1972.
• How about the record for beating your age by the most strokes? OK, that's Ed Ervasti, who in 2007, at age 93, posted a 72 at Sunningdale Golf & Country Club (Old Course) in London, Ontario.
• On the pro tours, the most-strokes-below-age record is held by Joe Jimenez (who in 1991 set a record for youngest age shooter on pro tours - with a 63 at 65 on the Champions Tour - later bested by Walter Morgan). Jimenez shot a 62 during the 1995 Ameritech Senior Open on the then-Seniors Tour when he was the ripe old age of 69.

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