That’s good news for (the many cartless) older golfers and means that even if your score starts to skyrocket as your aging body deteriorates, at least you’ll still have the mental capacity to add it all up at the end of the round.

The University of Western Australia study was conducted over 18 months with 170 participants aged over 50 who felt they had memory problems.

The participants were divided into two groups and for six months one group aimed to walk for 50 minutes three times a week or participate in other moderate exercise.

The other group continued with their usual activities.

Results revealed the exercise group performed better on cognitive tasks and had superior delayed recall than the other group.

The landmark study was published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Lead researcher, Nicola Lautenschlager of the University of Melbourne, said the improved memory occurred not only during the trial but for 12 months after the end of the physical activity program.

“We have known for a long time that exercise is a great way to improve cardiovascular health, but it may be that in the future exercise can also be recommended to protect against the ageing brain,” she said.

“The improvement on the memory testing was significant and it was higher than in previous drug trials with Alzheimer’s (disease) medications in patients with mild cognitive impairment.

Professor Lautenschlager said she believed this was the first ever trial to demonstrate that exercise can boost memory in older adults at risk of developing conditions such as Alzheimer’s.

She said brisk walking was the safest form of exercise for older people and the results suggested 20 minutes of daily exercise could possibly delay the onset of conditions such as dementia.

“We are not talking onerous, dramatic physical activity but (walking 20 minutes is) something which I think most people would feel, ‘yeah that is something I could incorporate into my daily routine’.”

Playing golf for four plus hours, including all the walking and associated physical activity, would have to more than fit the bill. We’d have to concede that even those using carts are still getting enough exercise to keep some blood flowing to the brain.

The Australian study comes on top of a recent Swedish study that found playing regular golf can actually prolong your life.

The study showed the death rate for golfers is 40 per cent lower than for other people of the same sex, age and socioeconomic status. See Golfers live Longer

The Australian team includes Rick Oliver (NSW), Denis Dale (NSW), Ross Percy (VIC), Brian Sams (NSW), Nigel Goodall (WA) and Stefan Albinski (NSW).

Oliver and Dale are current winner and runner-up respectively of the recently completed Australian Senior Order of Merit and the rest of the team have been in winning form at various events throughout the year.

In his first year of eligibility for AUSOOM events (Aged 55+), Sydney’s Stefan Albinski has had a major impact and is the current Australian Senior Amateur Golf Championship winner.

Albinski also won the 2008 Queensland Senior Amateur Championship and the North Sydney Seniors Championship in June and recently tested his skills in trying conditions at the 2008 British Senior Open Amateur Championship.

The Asia Pacific Senior Golf Championship will be played over 54 holes at the Karambunai Golf Resort, Sabah, Malaysia from November 11-13, 2008.

Men’s Senior Match Play returns to Barwon Heads Golf Club

The Australian Men’s Senior Amateur Match Play Championship will return to the challenging Barwon Heads Golf Club for the 64 player match play event to be held from the 5 - 10 October 2008.

The top 64 ranked players on the Men’s Senior Order of Merit (who enter) will be drawn to play for the title of Australian Men’s Senior Amateur Match Play Champion.

Golf Australia says with the guarantee of six rounds (defeated players continue playing all week) of golf at the picturesque Barwon Heads layout and the relaxed feel of the seaside location, the Championship will be a highlight of the Australian Seniors golfing calendar.

Entries for this event close on Monday September 8. For details see the AUSOOM website or for a list of current entries and entry form see the Golf Australia listing here.

State Senior Golf Championships

Also coming up soon on the senior amateur golfing calendar is the 2008 South Australian Seniors Championship to be played at Murray Bridge Golf Club from October 22-24 and the 2008 Victorian Seniors Championship at Rosebud Golf Club from October 27-30.

(Australian Senior Golfer site Navigation Tip: To see all AUSOOM related stories click on the Events\AUSOOM category at the top of the page, or you can click on the AUSOOM “tag” below the headline in related stories. You can also use the Google Custom Search function in the sidebar to search this site.)

Golf Australia says one of the positive outcomes of the new handicap ceiling will be that players whose golf diminishes over time due to age will be better encouraged to remain actively engaged in competitions and club life.

Beginners will also be better encouraged to become actively engaged in golf and club life and the new handicap level is also in line with US and European systems.

Another new provision will help players who may be recovering from injuries or illness and will allow for an immediate manual adjustment of their handicaps.

For full details of the the new provisions see our previous story of the announcement:

Men’s handicap increase…but golf cheats beware

Actor Sean Connery, the original and best James Bond, has revealed that preparing for the movie Goldfinger led to his lifelong passion for golf.

In his just released memoir, Connery says he came to see golf as a metaphor for living, that it greatly enhanced his life and was the nearest he ever came to having a religion.

The autobiography, “Being a Scott” was released this week on Connery’s 78th Birthday in Edinburgh.

The following excerpt was published in the UK Telegraph.

I never had a hankering to play golf, despite growing up in Scotland just down the road from Bruntsfield Links, which is one of the oldest golf courses in the world. It wasn’t until I was taught enough golf to look as though I could outwit the accomplished golfer Gert Frobe in Goldfinger that I got the bug. I began to take lessons on a course near Pinewood film studios and was immediately hooked on the game. Soon it would nearly take over my life.

I began to see golf as a metaphor for living, for in golf you are basically on your own, competing against yourself and always trying to do better. If you cheat, you will be the loser, because you are cheating yourself. When Ian Fleming portrayed Auric Goldfinger as a smooth cheater, James Bond had no regrets when he switched his golf balls, since to be cheated is the just reward of the cheater.

Ext. Golf course - day Bond spots Goldfinger cheating.

Bond: “You play a Slazenger 1, don’t you?”

Goldfinger: “Yes, why?”

Bond: “This is a Slazenger 7.”

Bond shows Goldfinger his own golf ball.

Bond: “Here’s my Penfold Hearts. You must have played the wrong ball somewhere on the 18th fairway. We are playing strict rules, so I’m afraid you lose the hole and the match.”

During the filming of Goldfinger, I learned the essential challenge of links golf at Royal Dornoch in the north-east Highlands. Ever since then I have been drawn to links golf and its enduring challenges, and I’ve learnt to play a variety of shots under constantly changing conditions. It’s quite naked golf. There aren’t many trees, or other features, to aid your alignment. Much is left to the imagination and to picturing the shot. Then there’s the wind, always a factor on a links course. You’re required to play run-up shots and to work the ball this way and that.

Within a few years of Goldfinger, my golf was good enough to play against professionals in competitions. I was invited to join one of Bing Crosby’s showbusiness amateur teams against professional golfers in America, which was an early forerunner of the pro-ams. It gave me the idea of promoting a pro-am tournament in Scotland to showcase our Scottish International Education Trust. Since one of its first board members, the shipbuilder Sir Iain Stewart, had fabulous connections in the world of golf, the planning got off to a flying start.

We settled on the out-and-back Ayrshire course of Royal Troon, and chose the week following the Open. Since all the key players in the world would be congregating at St Andrews that year, travelling down to Troon from Fife would hardly be crossing the Atlantic. Because the Troon course had been having problems with encroaching tides and with crowd control, we recruited rugby players as volunteer policemen, who made a great job controlling the 20,000 who came. The amateurs included the comedian Jimmy Tarbuck, the footballer Kenny Dalglish and the boxer Henry Cooper, along with Eric Sykes and me.

Sponsors put up generous prizes and we allowed them to place their logo on the holes for £1,000. Eagle Star Insurance took the first hole, which was a driveable par four. But when two players in the first half-dozen holed out in eagle to each claim their prize of £500, Iain Stewart thought we’d all be left penniless. Fortunately only one more player holed out in two. The tournament was a great success, with Christy O’Connor becoming the all-round winner, and it re-established Royal Troon as a venue for future Opens. In 1970 I won a trophy at a tournament in Morocco, La Coupe du Roi de Maroc. Then the next day I was drawn against a brilliant player who had won the women’s trophy. That was Micheline Roquebrune. We were married one year later.

In the late 1960s, when I was mastering the game, a remarkable book came out, catching the spirit of the times. Michael Murphy’s Golf in the Kingdom took the frustrations that often befall the average golfer and turned them into a mystical Zen experience. A young golfer takes lessons from a wily left-handed all-knowing professional called Shivas Irons. It’s a name charged with meaning for the impressionable young man from California, straight out of college, on his way to seek enlightenment in India. Shivas is a seer who delivers golfing nuggets of Celtic wisdom in the spirit of a Zen master. His name comes from Aberdeenshire and could derive from the old Scots verb “shiv”, meaning to push or shove. Then there’s the debatable phrase “to be blown to smithereens”, which he shifts to “shivereens” so as to connect the name to Shiva - the ancient Hindu god of destruction. And redemption. So Murphy finds his shaman, not in an Indian ashram with his mystic guru Aurobindo, but out there on a golf course in the Kingdom of Fife.

Over the years golf has taught me much, and its implicit codes of conduct have provided me with the nearest I have ever come to a religion. A golf player is on his honour to call a shot against himself and to be considerate to other players following up behind. I can illustrate this well from an incident I heard about when playing a round at Pine Valley in America.

Cliff Robertson, a veteran golfer in his 80s who carried the whole history of Pine Valley on his shoulders, came up behind a foursome. Etiquette would have normally let him play through. He asked the caddie for permission for this from the foursome, but he returned to say that their answer was no. So he got on his cart and went up to them.

“Before you say anything,” he told them, “you have no standing. There is no one in front of you. Now you are not going through.” Then he turned to his caddie: “Take all their bags back on the cart to the clubhouse.”

“Hey, don’t touch our clubs!” one protested.

“Who invited you?”

“Some member.”

“You will never set foot on Pine Valley in your lives again. And your friend is now barred from Pine Valley for a year. Now I would like to play through.”

What a marvellous lesson that was.

I am always keen to slip away for a round of golf whenever a movie schedule makes it possible. When filming John le Carre’s The Russia House I was invited by that all-round sportsman Sven Tumba to play on the first golf course in the Soviet Union. The enterprising Swede had not only threaded his nine fairways around high-rise tenements a 10-minute drive from Red Square, he had also founded a golf school. One of its most gifted students, the teenager Denis Zherebko, was ready to tee off with us to inaugurate the course in 1989.

The Moscow City Club has since grown, with membership now every bit as expensive as

its American counterparts. Having long banned the game in the Soviet Union for its bourgeois decadence, how Stalin would have scowled.

During the war, when the British embassy was packed with Scots, the UK enjoyed remarkably close relations with the USSR. Bob Dunbar, the press officer who later ran the London Film School, told me how they would often break away from Foreign Office etiquette to sink a few drinks with such adversaries as the film director Sergei Eisenstein and even Stalin himself. The ambassador, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, was a witty Australian Scot who had forged close relations with Stalin. When he left Moscow towards the end of the war he met his replacement, Sir Maurice Peterson.

“How do you think you’ll manage to get on with Stalin?” he asked the new ambassador.

“Easy, old boy, I’ll invite him out regularly for a round of golf.” In fact this routine diplomat soon alienated the dictator. The nights of hard-drinking bonhomie were gone for ever. Stiff-upper-lipped diplomacy became the order of the day, as international relations began their slow freeze into the Cold War.

Not all Communists were so averse to golf. When President Eisenhower made the front page of The New York Times by hitting a hole-in-one, Fidel Castro was driven to ask Che Guevara to teach him the game.

“He had been a caddie once to earn some money in his spare time,” the Cuban president remembered. “I, on the other hand, knew absolutely nothing about this expensive sport.” Expensive sport or not, Cuba now boasts a world-class 18-hole golf course at the beach resort of Varadero. Through an improbable international sports initiative, Cubans are now being coached by British golfers in exchange for Cubans training British teams in baseball. Whoever brokered that one must surely deserve promotion.

Golf has greatly enhanced my life. Through golfing I have met remarkable people, some of whom have been truly inspirational. It was through golf that I met Sir Iain Stewart, who pioneered new industrial relations on the Clyde, which opened my mind to the possibility of political change.

I met the flying ace Douglas Bader on the golf course. He never let the loss of his legs affect his game, eventually getting his handicap down to an extraordinary five. Long before the aerial Battle of Britain he had lost both legs in a flying accident. To the Germans he became a legend, because every time they shot him down he escaped. His last camp commandant eventually clipped his wings by locking away his prosthetic legs.

McWilliam was aged 87 when he lost his battle with cancer on Sunday. He will be long remembered for his efforts in encouraging young people to play golf.

McWilliam was the PGA club professional at Sydney’s Beverley Park Golf Club for 33 years and is credited with helping to launch the pro careers of not only Norman, but also David Graham, Bruce Devlin and Bruce Crampton.

McWilliam also coached well-known professionals Len Woodward, Len Thomas, Dennise Hutton and Australian Amateur Champion Kevin Donohoe.

“I’m always thinking like a winner which is what Mr Mac tells me to do all the time”

McWilliam was 86 last year when new protégé Sarah Kemp won her US LPGA card and she credited him for much of her success.

In early 2006 a newly turned professional Kemp said of her then 84 year old coach: “I didn’t know turning pro and winning tournaments could be so much fun. I am very positive, I’m always thinking like a winner which is what Mr Mac [McWilliam] tells me to do all the time.”

McWilliam was famous for encouraging children to play golf and was the first person to stage state and Australian school championships.

Although his playing career was brief, McWilliam was the winner of the 1940 NSW PGA Championship and he also set a world record in the 1947 Australian Open.

He shot a then world record nine under the card 65 in the first round of the Open at Royal Queensland Golf Club, which had a standard scratch par of 74.

In 1974, Greg Norman was thrilled when McWilliam agreed to employ him as a PGA Assistant at Beverley Park and wrote in his biography of his “unbounded delight” at being apprenticed under “one of Australia’s most famous golf instructors”.

“My day to day routine as an apprentice under Billy McWilliam was gruelling,” Norman wrote, saying his day started at 4am and ended after midnight.

“I was delighted that my first steps in professional golf were to be guided by such a man as Billy McWilliam,” Norman wrote in his biography. Their relationship was unfortunately cut short after a few months when Norman returned to Queensland because of dispute with state authorities over his eligibility to play in tournaments.

In June 2004, McWilliam was awarded a Medal (AOM) in the General Division of the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for his services to golf. He was also a PGA of Australia Life Member.

The funeral service for McWilliam will be held at 11am on Friday August 29 in the South Chapel at Woronora Crematorium at Sutherland.

The video is expected to be part of a new promotion for the EA Sports’ Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 Video game and comes about because of a glitch in previous editions allowing Woods, or at least his digital persona, to hit shots while walking on water.

In the new video, filmed at Woods’ Orlando, Florida compound, when his ball lands on a lily pad in a water hazard, Woods nonchalantly takes off his shoes and socks, grabs a wedge and walks across the surface of the water and hits the ball in the hole.

Keen eyed observers have already pointed out that when Woods dips his club into the water prior to his shot he clearly violates Rule 13-5.

According to the rule a player must not “touch the ground in the hazard or water in the water hazard with his hand or a club.”

Though he can violate the laws of physics by walking barefoot across the surface of a lake, breaking the laws of golf is a much more serious matter.

For violating Rule 13-5 he would incur a penalty of two strokes in stroke play or loss of hole in match play.

If Woods really can work miracles, he should do something about his knee.

a) 7

b) 8

c) 9

d) 10

Answer:

a).   Tony is not permitted to lift his ball because he thinks it might interfere with Joe’s play (Rule 22) so he incurs a penalty stroke for lifting his ball when it was not permitted (Rule 18-2a) but there is no additional penalty under Rule 22 so he incurs no penalty for putting the ball in his pocket.  But when he failed to replace the ball according to Rule 20-3b (after Joe altered Tony’s lie) he incurred the general penalty under Rule 18.  Therefore 5 strokes played plus 2 penalty strokes equals a score of  7.

NB If Joe had requested Tony to lift his ball because of interference (Rule 22-2) that would have been OK but Tony would then have been penalised for cleaning the ball when he put it in his pocket. (In that situation you lift and hold the ball between fore-finger and thumb until it is replaced).

This golf rules quiz item supplied by Cliff Nunn, a VGA state acredited rules official and proprietor of Golf Clubs Down Under.

Sequencing Your Golf Warm Up to build up the correct `feel’ in your golf swing

1. The golf exercise drills will gradually build up the correct “feel” for golf performed in the correct sequence.

2. Maintain good breathing and tempo control throughout each golf exercise drill.

3. Maintain good upright posture throughout each exercise drill.

4. Use pistol grip on both hands with each exercise drill.

5. Repeat each exercise for between15-30 seconds 2-3 times depending on time and ability to maintain form.

• Stop if you experience sharp pain, dizziness or have an acute condition.

1.BUILDING UP YOUR `GOLF FEEL’ 

Using the Flexibility & Mobility Warm-up Drill

Combined Hip Trunk & Shoulder Stretch 

Get into the lunge position, feel stretch at right hip. Maintain an upright posture and tuck in your lower abdomen. Hold golf club above head with pistol grip. Bend trunk to left side, keeping head aligned on shoulders 

2. BUILDING UP YOUR `GOLF FEEL’

Using the Balance & Static Posture Warm-up drill

Standing upright in the `angel wings position’ against the wall, place a golf ball between the balls of your feet. Keep your nose and belly button in line with the ball. Tuck in your chin and look at the bottom of your lower eyelids. Keeping your arms by your side and forming a pistol grip in both hands, slowly lift the ball

up with your feet. Feel yourself getting taller as you pump up.

3. BUILDING UP YOUR `GOLF FEEL’

Using the Core Stability Golf Drill

Push

Slowly extend your arms and thrust the body in a slow pushing movement against an imaginary truck. Feel your shoulders, neck, abdominals, gluteals and legs all work together as if you are simulating an hydraulic pump.

4. BUILDING UP YOUR `GOLF FEEL’

Using Core Stability & Rotation

X-Factor Check

Keep yourself in an upright and stable posture. Place your elbows in by the side of our ribcage. Slowly rotate your trunk to the right maintaining your hips in a stable position to the front. Keep your elbows into your ribcage, feel the tension between your inside thigh and lower abdominals.

5. BUILDING UP YOUR `GOLF FEEL’

Using Core Stability, Rotation & Dynamic Posture

The Cross Over Golf Exercise Drill

Stand in an upright position and maintaining good spinal posture at all times, cross your right elbow to the top of your left knee. Then cross your left elbow on to your right knee. The movements should be smooth and the speed of the exercise gradually increased.

Ramsay McMaster is an industry leading golf specific physiotherapist who has worked with thousands of average golfers, with leading tour pros and coaches, with major golf organisations in Australia and around the world and is the founder of the Melbourne Golf Injury Clinic.

For further information, individual assessment or advice on programs email Ramsay at golfphysio@golfmed.net or visit golfmed.net

Ramsay McMaster and the Melbourne Golf Injury Clinic: Related Articles

Ramsay McMaster Golf Fitness

Ramsay is a groundbreaking golf specific physiotherapist and has worked with thousands of average golfers, with leading tour pros and coaches, with major golf organisations in Australia and elsewhere and is the founder of the Melbourne Golf Injury Clinic.

Ramsay’s vast experience working not just with professional players on all world tours but with more than 5000 average weekend players of all ages makes his insights on the game and on golf and the body invaluable.

Ramsay has some simple advice and exercises that can not only help prevent injury and prolong golfing longevity but can also improve overall mobility, stability and posture and give you a better basis for a consistent golf swing and of continued game improvement.

Just by effectively warming up, staying ‘warm’ throughout your round and warming down correctly afterwards you stand a good chance of preventing injury and playing better, more consistent golf. 

For those who do have injuries or chronic conditions affecting their golf, there are also pointers to effective treatments, programs and individual assessments.

Just by effectively warming up, staying ‘warm’ throughout your round and warming down correctly afterwards you stand a good chance of preventing injury and playing better, more consistent golf

Ramsay, an A Grade golfer himself, was the first therapist to realise the need to develop a practice specifically to service and treat golfers.

He established the Melbourne Golf Injury Clinic in 1992 and has continued to build a talented multi-disciplinary team dedicated to the treatment and wellbeing of golfers of all ages and abilities.

The clinic provides a range of services including physiotherapists specifically trained to work with golfers, golf specific myotherapists, remedial massage therapists, orthotists “working with golf orthotics”, 3D swing analysis, golf specific exercise programs, Fitball classes for golfers, “Get fit for golf” lectures for golf teams and clubs, and a number of others.

There are also new and unique programs including the “Train like a Tour Player” program and “GUR: Golfers Under Repair”.

For individual advice and assessment visit http://www.golfmed.net/ or email Ramsey at golfphysio@golfmed.net

Ramsay consults to a number of organisations including The Australian Institute of Sport Golf Unit,  the PGA of Australia and the PGA ‘s of Britain, US, Ireland and New Zealand amongst others. 

Golf Fitness Articles: Ramsay McMaster and the Melbourne Golf Injury Clinic.

Your 5 Minute Golf Warm-Up 

More to come.

Harrington rallied from three shots behind Sunday to close with a 4-under 66 at Oakland Hills to win his second major on the trot.

Harrington is only the fourth player to win the British Open and the PGA in the same year and he has won three of the last six majors.

The Irishman won the event by two shots from Spain’s Sergio Garcia and American Ben Curtis with Colombian Camilo Villegas and Swede Henrick Stenson finishing in a tie for fourth.

Aaron Baddeley was the best placed Australian, closing with a final round three over par to finish on six over for the tournament in 13th place, nine shots behind Harrington.

Baddeley played solidly in extremely tough conditions that saw just three players finish under par and he secured his best ever finish at the PGA Championships.

“I was close to being right there this week, just not quite, said Baddeley. “I just didn’t get off to the start I wanted for the final round which was disappointing.”

A dropped shot on the final hole saw him lose his grip on his first top ten finish in the event.

“I bogeyed the last hole to miss the top ten so I am disappointed with that.  I was thinking if I could at least sneak in to the top 10 it would be some sort of consolation prize,” he said.

Stuart Appleby finished one shot behind Baddeley in 15th place with a final round 72. He described the conditions as ‘brutal’ and despite a strong putting performance, last week’s Bridgestone Invitational runner up just couldn’t quite land the shots.

FINAL AUSTRALASIAN SCORES:

WINNER: PADRIAG HARRINGTON (Ireland) - 3, 277

 T13, Aaron Baddeley , +6, 71, 71, 71, 73, 286

T15, Stuart Appleby , +7, 76, 70, 69, 72, 287

T24, Mark Brown , +9, 77, 69, 74, 69, 289

T31, Robert Allenby , +11, 76, 72, 72, 71, 291

T31, Geoff Ogilvy , +11, 73, 74, 74, 70, 291

T39, Steve Elkington , +12, 71, 73, 73, 75, 292

T42, Michael Campbell , +13, 73, 71, 75, 74, 293

T42, John Senden , +13, 76, 72, 72, 73, 293

T68, Peter Lonard , +20, 74, 74, 74, 78, 300

71, Richard Green , +23, 71, 77, 79, 76, 303

 Missed Cut:

Brendan Jones , +9, 71, 78

Adam Scott , +10, 77, 73

Nick O’Hern , +10, 74, 76

Scott Strange , +11, 73, 78

Rod Pampling , +11, 70, 81

Mathew Goggin , +16, 81, 75