Vijay Singh being old is keeping us young, so let him cook
Mike Mulholland
Golfpocalypse is a meandering collection of words about golf (professional and otherwise) that sometimes, but not always, has a point. Reach out with your questions or comments on absolutely anything at shane.spr8@gmail.com. We'll publish the best emails here.
I have a distinct memory of being in my 20s and thinking about the moment, many years down the road, when there were no longer any professional athletes in the four major American sports who were older than me. That would be pretty messed up, I thought. I mean, it was messed up that they were my age now, and that some were younger; it wasn't long ago that I was looking up to them, and now I could at least imagine a time when—like the older men in my life—I'd be watching these games and calling them "kids." Death flashed before my eyes, and then it flashed away, because I was still young.
Well, the day came. I'm not even sure when it happened, because lucky for me, I was too busy to notice. But studying the tape now, it definitely happened before this year, because Justin Verlander was the oldest regular player in any of the four sports, and he's a month younger than me. Lebron in the NBA? Marc-Andre Fleury in the NHL? Aaron Rodgers in the NFL? All younger. Barely, but still. Going back, it was the same deal in 2024, except that Tom Brady made it to Jan. 21 in the playoffs that year. Was that the last day anyone older than me played any of the big four sports?
No! Because two miracles happened. First, 45-year-old Rich Hill made two starts for the Royals in late July (both losses), and then Philip Rivers, 43, played three games in December for the Colts (loss, loss, loss). That at least got me to Dec. 28, 2025, but if you were a betting man, you'd have favorable odds that Rivers completing a 12-yard pass to Michael Pittman in the waning moments of that game was the last time anyone older than me would ever appear in the NFL, MLB, NHL, or NBA.
But then, folks, we have golf. Beautiful, glorious golf, where you don't have to leap or sprint or get elbowed in the nose or tackled onto hard turf or slammed into wooden boards. All you have to do in golf is swing 70-ish times and walk a few miles, and you know who can pull that off? Middle-aged men! As Will Knights at The Fried Egg proved last year, if you rank professional golfers by age, you can go all the way up to the 50s. It's glorious.
And now, thanks to the return of Vijay Singh, there is a human being who is one month shy of being 20 YEARS OLDER than me who is still competing on the PGA Tour! Twenty years??? That's an eternity! If there's a guy out there playing with two decades on me, then I cannot possibly be old, time is not spiraling out of control, and—potentially—I will never die.
Do I like Vijay Singh? Not really. He seems a little humorless, a little like an obsessed workaholic who wouldn't be much of a good hang. He was the No. 1 golfer in the world for a while, he's won three normal majors and one old guy major, and is genuinely one of the greatest players to ever do it, but if you ever brought him up in conversation with your friends before this year, there's a good chance you were talking about the deer-antler spray. Even his nickname, "The Big Fijian," tells a story, and the story is "this guy is good enough to deserve a nickname, but inspires almost no affection, so here's the most basic thing we could think of."
Also, everyone's mad that he took the weird exemption to become a full-time member this year, where if you're among the top 50 earners in PGA Tour history—Singh is sixth—you get a one-time season-long exemption whenever you want it. That little status loophole will probably be closed by PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp post-haste, but for now, Vijay got through the door, and people are quite annoyed. I get it. It's within the rules, but it's a real stretch, it looks like a late-life vanity play, and he'll definitely take spots from young players who are trying to build actual careers. If I were the first alternate in a week when Vijay was in the field, I would do everything I could to get Congress to declare war on Fiji.
But as a sports fan, do I hate it? Absolutely not. I love it. He's bringing me back into the fold just by virtue of being old and shameless enough to play, and hey, look! He shot a 68 in his first round back! If he makes the cut this week (or any week), he'll already have outdone Hill and Rivers, the young whippersnappers who went 0-for-5 in their 2025 outings. But even if he was going to miss every cut—and that didn't happen because Singh reached the weekend in his first try in Hawaii—he serves an important purpose, which is to act as a one-man fountain of youth for a guy like me. I had given up all hope of ever grasping the sweet illusion of youth again, but Vijay has rejuvenated me just by being himself. Who needs one of those fancy Silicon Valley blood boys when you have Vijay out there on the links, keeping us all young? I hope he keeps his card and plays until he's 70.
The Psycho Season-Long Golf Pool of 2026
I know that buried deep in my readership are some real pool sickos, and this content is for them. I love a good, weird pool myself, but I've found that the older I get, the more I flake out on season-long pools that require any kind of regular maintenance. So this year, I set a goal to devise a semi-complex season-long pool of the one-touch variety, meaning that 99% of the work is done up top, and once you submit your picks, you're done. I came up with something called "Green Asylum," early feedback among the friends is positive, and you can feel free to steal it. Here's how it works:
+ Starting at the American Express this coming week, there are 32 tournaments between now and the Tour Championship. Doesn't count alt events, does count majors.
+ You will pick one player per tournament by next Thursday, 32 players total, no repeats.
+ You will then prioritize each tournament into four tiers. Eight tournaments will be in Tier 1 (4x points), eight will be in Tier 2 (3x points), eight will be in Tier 3 (2x Points), and eight will be in Tier 4 (1x points). This is entirely of your choosing. You can make the Cadillac Championship bigger than The Masters.
+ You earn base points when your designated player finishes in the top 32, from 32 points for 1st place to 1 point for 32nd place (ties are worth whatever the T-number is)
+ Those points are then multiplied by the tier. If your pick finishes first in a Tier 1 event, that's 32 x 4, 128 points. If your pick finishes 32nd in a Tier 4 event, that's 1 x 1, for 1 point.
+ 0 points earned for DNP, WD, DQ, or a finish outside the top 32.
+ Zurich team format doesn’t matter, it’s just finishing position for your player, and it also doesn’t matter (except for strategy) that the Tour Championship has 30 players.
+ Most total points for the year wins.
+ You will also select three alternates in advance that you can place in a tournament exactly once each, to bail you out if your player isn't playing that week.
+ One last wrinkle: Other than the pool admin(s), nobody will know any player's picks or priority until a weekly email on Monday, which will also include standings.
I have high hopes for this one.
One very short thought on Hawaii
I don't care if it's inconvenient or inefficient or doesn't make enough money or attract the best fields or WHATEVER—I like watching golf in Hawaii in January. It's aspirational, because even in Durham, N.C., right now it's 20 degrees. It's beautiful. It's a spiritual return to the sport and an advance promise of spring. It shouldn't go away. They should keep it going just because it's cool, it's a tradition, and in some ineffable way that can't be measured by money, these matters of the heart are important.
I'm sure when Tour brass read that paragraph, they'll wipe tears from their eyes and immediately cancel any plans to leave the Aloha State behind.
Previously on Golfpocalypse:
The solution to the silly season is to make it even sillier
Will a teenager ever win a men's golf major again?
Justin Thomas' comments on Bethpage only highlights Keegan Bradley's failure
The Internet Invitational was a story about fathers: Good, bad, and toxic
I've arrived at the brutal crossroads of the mediocre recreational golfer
None of LIV Golf's format ideas ever mattered, and they won't start now
Playing golf in bad weather is a mental paradiseWhy don't we care when a journeyman or no-name wins on Tour?
I hate that I am riveted by Bryson DeChambeau's ping pong challenge
Let me teach you where to stand on the tee box to not annoy people
I turned down two free rounds at the world's best course because I'm weird about golf
I don't want your gimme putt, pal
I will no longer be entering nine-hole rounds, GHIN, and you can't make me
I will abandon my friends during a round. Does this make me a bad person?
Did I dishonor the game via handicap shenanigans?
Rory's Masters win was the ultimate "dudes crying" moment in golf
I want to be a draw alpha, not a fade beta
If you had to give up golf or sex for the rest of your life, which would it be?
I am the recent victim of golf snobbery, and I'm mad
Should the Tour just move to an F1 style schedule and be done with it?
I was the world's most annoying teenage golf maintenance worker
Can golf still be a spiritual experience in 2024?
There is nothing stranger than a golfer's brain...just ask us
I have the dumbest golf pet peeve, but I can't shake it
If you talk about politics on the course, please, for God's sake, stop
Loving Golf in 2024 is about finding where the money isn't
I believed in the magic of Tiger Woods when I was a kid, but I'm a cynic now
If you can enjoy playing golf alone, you have achieved Nirvana
I took 12 stitches to the head for golf before I even loved it
An annual 'Friends Ryder Cup' trip is the greatest thing in golf
Marshals at public golf courses need to get way meaner
I, and I alone, have the genius tweak to fix the Tour Championship
It cannot be fun to play golf when you're egregiously bad
Confession: I break clubs when I'm mad
Playing golf in bad weather makes me feel alive
Caring what other people think of your golf game is annoying to other people
Sympathize with Rory, because choking sucks