[Dion]

Originally Posted by browna

Nothing to do with age in this case.

Westwood is 23 years younger and he started pulling shots left down the last 4 or 5 holes, shooting himself out of contention. Mentally he was done...so was Watson after missing that on 18 after being so close.

Battling and the roller coaster all weekend..down in the final round, then tied with 2 others, then a lead into 18. A perfect tee shot, a 2nd shot that landed 2 feet too long and rolled an extra 15 feet down the back of the green. A slighlt mi put out of the rough. Too much mentally...as soon as he missed halfhearted putt on 18, one pretty much knew he was gutted. Watson's supposedly not been secretive about his nerves in his career when he's been in leads.

Something to consider.....

Staying fit and maintaining endurance is a challenge, though.

"You lose distance, because of loss of muscle. You lose flexibility in your shoulders and your spine. You can't rotate, you can't generate the same clubhead speed to hit the ball very hard," Gregory said.

To stay in the game, an older athlete must be fit beyond what is needed for his specific sport, said Ralph Reiff, an athletic trainer and director of a sports performance program at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis. That means cross-training with weights, and biking or swimming to maintain cardiovascular fitness.

What we focus on is flexibility and range of motion, because those are the things that leave us as we get older, and also endurance. That's the one area that might have caught up with Tom a little bit," Reiff said of Watson, who fell apart in the playoff round on Sunday.

"Maybe a little fatigue sets in that wouldn't have set in for a younger person," Foster agreed. "It's still a repetitive sport, and stuff adds up after awhile."

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