July 4, 2026, 8:04 a.m. ET

  • Professional golfers Jay Haas and Olin Browne were the two oldest players at the U.S. Senior Open.
  • Age-related physical decline, such as reduced driving distance and focus, makes competing more difficult.
  • Despite the challenges, many golfers over 60 continue to play at a high level, even with past injuries and in extreme heat.

If the end is near, Jay Haas does not want to know. The 72-year-old professional golfer wants to break the tape and keep on going.

“I always said I would be one who would go through the finish line and not know I went through it,” Haas said. “Just turn around and, ‘I think I made it.’ ”

Sixty-seven-year-old Olin Browne, on the other hand, senses golf’s grim reaper tapping him on the shoulder.

“The runway is pretty short at this point,” Browne said July 3 at the U.S. Senior Open at Scioto Country Club.

Haas and Browne are the two oldest players in the field of 156 golfers at the national senior championship. Most of their buddies from their playing days on the PGA Tour have retired from competitive golf. But Haas and Browne continue to soldier on, their love for the sport at odds with their physiology.   

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Why keep playing? You can always use more money, but with Haas having earned $34.5 million between the PGA Tour and Champions Tour, well, let’s just say he’s not mowing his own grass.  

Money no motivator when spending more than you make

“The money is horrendous if you spend 5 grand and only make $2,000. That doesn’t work,” Browne said. “You still have to play well.”

Browne didn’t, shooting back-to-back 7-over 77s to miss the cut by 20 strokes. Haas missed the cut by two, ending a streak of 18 consecutive cuts made in U.S. Senior Opens. Not bad for someone the same age as Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam.

“Why play? Because it’s still fun to compete,” Haas said. “I never lost the passion to play, the desire to try. There are plenty of times, like Thursday, when I was 6-over and trying my guts out, and it just didn’t happen. Fifteen years ago, I’d say it’s just one of those days, but at 72, it’s just another day.”

Why?

“It’s still in the blood, something we’ve done for a long time,” said Browne, adding that “sitting around doing nothing” holds no appeal. The 2011 U.S. Senior Open champion repeated a line he heard from Champions Tour peer Glen Day. 

“The game leaves you before you leave the game. It’s an astute observation,” Browne said.

The game leaves you. Usually before you’re ready.

“I’m giving up so much yardage to the best players. They’re hitting it 300 yards,” said Haas, who averages about 260 yards off the tee. “Sometimes I get one out there pretty good, but other times it’s not even close. So that makes it really difficult.”

Browne was more blunt.

“Your body breaks down,” he said. “You don’t pay as close attention as you used to. I just think it’s physiological; you don’t have the ability to channel your energy or your focus the way you did when you were younger. That’s natural progression. We’re all fighting that. But the longer you stay active, the fewer issues you have or will develop.”

That leads to the second question: How?

The temperature at Scioto hit 97 degrees, with a heat index – air temp plus relative humidity – reaching 108. Yet Haas and Browne, as well as the other 28 players in the field who are 60 and over, played a brand of golf most of us never come close to touching. Browne shot 77? Ninety-nine percent of the golfing population would not break 80 at a Scioto course set up by the USGA to fool and frustrate the best senior golfers in the world.

Golfers could have used getting hosed down in the high heat

The heat turned players into puddles. Sweat-soaked Colin Montgomerie resembled a baggie floating in the ocean. Henrik Stenson’s sopping designer shirt could have doubled as a Wet-Nap.

Add to that the aches and pains all seniors experience and it’s a wonder why, and how, the older guys ever leave their air-conditioned hotel rooms. 

“I had back surgery a couple years ago, very successful,” Haas said. “I had my shoulder scoped about 26 years ago.”

Browne once tore a ligament in his wrist and has dealt with a bulging disc in his back, yet he refused to use injuries as an excuse for poor play.

“Everybody has something,” he said. “But I’m walking every week and still able to get it around, but it’s not much fun anymore. This is probably my last [U.S. Senior Open].”  

The aging athlete is viewed with a mix of respect and pity. For every Tom Brady, who won a Super Bowl with Tampa Bay at age 43, there is a 40-year-old Johnny Unitas stumbling to a final season with the San Diego Chargers in 1973, or a 42-year-old Willie Mays hitting .211 for the 1972 New York Mets.

If LeBron is an age-defying 41-year-old unicorn, Shaq was a bit of a broken-down nag when he retired at 39.

Golf is different. A 46-year-old Jack Nicklaus wowed the world by winning the 1986 Masters, and 65-year-old Bernhard Langer stiff-armed Father Time by winning the 2023 U.S. Senior Open. The pros can produce impressive results longer than in other sports. 

But there still comes a time when it’s time. Browne sees it. Haas does not want to. Respect to both.

 Sports columnist Rob Oller can be reached at roller@dispatch.com and on X.com at@rollerCD.