Recently a launch monitor informed me, politely but conclusively, that I am no longer the golfer I used to be.

This did not come as a total shock. At 67, my driver swing speed has drifted to just under 100 miles per hour, which modern golf culture classifies as "pretty good for your age," a phrase carrying all the emotional reassurance of being told your cholesterol numbers are "interesting."

Still, part of me remains susceptible to fantasy. I spent time recently with a club fitter expecting--or perhaps hoping--to discover that my lost distance had been hiding inside the wrong driver shaft all along. Modern golf culture encourages this belief. Somewhere out there, we are assured, exists a combination of carbon fiber, launch angle and spin optimization capable of restoring vanished youth.

Instead, the fitter studied the numbers and more or less shrugged. My equipment, he said, was actually pretty well suited to my swing. The driver fit me. The shaft fit me. Maybe I could tee the ball a little higher to improve launch angle--I'd already adjusted the head to add loft--but there was no hidden technological jailbreak waiting to be purchased. There wasn't anything he could sell me that would make a meaningful difference.

If I wanted to regain some distance, he suggested, maybe try speed training. Or yoga.

This was mildly devastating news.

When I was younger, hitting it far was probably the strongest part of my game. I've won a few long-drive contests and once made a hole in one on a 330-yard par four. As a junior golfer, I nearly drove what was then the third hole at Andrew Querbes Park in Shreveport, a 352-yard par four fronted by a drainage ditch. During a tournament, I carried the ditch and finished just short of the green in the fringe.

This was not........

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