While I started playing when I was 20 my real love was baseball and fast pitch softball. I worked for three startup companies over the next 28 years and played golf off and on during that time. I retired in 1990 and that was when I started to play golf a lot. For the next 15 years I played to a single digit handicap. Since then my scoring has gone from the med 70's low 80's to mid 80's with an occasional visit to the 70's and a rare visit to the 90's. I now just play to enjoy the walk and to get some exercise. I play year around and only play 9 holes in the winter months and try to get 18 during the summer.
Your best golf: Before 40? Or Afterwards?
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For sure, a lot of the difference is made up with the ability to play and practice more.
Where the technology boundaries exist between the differences of playing more and better equipment?
Who knows.
But, the player in me will always suggest that being more active, playing more, practicing more, will most always take the lion's share of the credit over technology is it relates to better scoring and execution.
And I say that as a former fan of playing/practicing on a regular basis, and a current fan of the bigger, more forgiving club faces and 4-pc balls to make up for the latter.
sdandrea1 Sheesh! Government employees were never known for their reading ability... while working or after retirement!! The use of 70/71 was talking about my 2017 rounds of golf. My birthday is November 3rd. So, most of my 2017 round were when I was 70. As stated in the post, our handicap season ended November 15th. We also had a mild November/December and played many round beyond the end of the handicap season... at age 71. So... my 2017 golf was played while I was 70/71 years old!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go back to gluing old Pings together and let me alone!!!!
My best golf has been before 40 
My best golf is in my imagination.
Still waiting for it to be real.
For me, my best golf was from 45-55 years of age. I played in tournaments of some kind almost every weekend. Most of them were 3 man or 4 man team tournaments. Since age 55 it's been a constant downhill grind for my golf game.
Before 40.
When I was a college student, I played about 5 days a week, weather permitting, walking and carrying my clubs. I consistently shot between about 75 and maybe 82, with most rounds in the high 70s.
Now my scores vary between 80 and about 95, with the vast majority of them being between 82 and 87. 84 is my most common score. So I'm about 6 shots worse than I was in my 20s.
My best golf was around age 45-50, distance was good, but fought the occasional high-right tee shot. Now at 73, my distance is shot, but I'll hit 10/14 fairways and my irons are more accurate. Putting is like a fart in a windstorm, it's all over the place. With a bum knee, still enjoy getting out once a week.
Didn't play between age 25 and 45. Since age 45 my lowest was a par 71 at my home course. Shot a 75 today (34-41) at age 62.
I have enjoyed playing more after turning 40 but I scored far better prior to 40.
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After 40. I did not play till I was 22 and then only occasionally. I was about 40 when I began to play more than two or three times a year. In my early 40's I had the opportunity to begin to play several times a week, took lessons and started to practice. My best golf was in my late 40's. In all the sports I have played, baseball, tennis, and basketball, I tend to be hot and cold, but when I was hot I was hot. In golf I set a new course record for several courses in our area of SW Michigan during a 2-3 year stretch. My game was still solid as I entered my 50's and moved to KY, until I injured my left knee. I had to go under the knife and was a year and a half rehab. Although I still can occasionally play well, I have never gotten my former game back. I simply can not put the strain on my left knee I did prior to injury.
I get hot once in a while even now, but it is unusual and does not last. When, I was 68 my low round playing from the blue tees at my club was a -2 (70) round. Last year, I played in a "beat the pro event" at our club. I beat the pro and the field with a 73, from the senior tees - hey I was 72. I don't normally play the senior tees. I regularly play with some seniors that still play with some length off the tee. So we play from the blue tees and we are generally in the low to high 80's.
Sounds like you're the guy that everyone else has to beat when you're playing a tee box distance you can manage.
And if given the choice (personally) of shooting my usual 78 from the tee boxes I normally play, or the ability to move up and shoot 5-6 strokes better?
Count me in. I'm a huge fan of having a short iron in my hand versus a hybrid or fairway wood on my longer approach shots into par4's. The game just seems a lot more enjoyable. 
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The competition and friendship with the guys I play with is more important to me than my score. I don't practice much any more and I rarely will play just to get out. I still enjoy the game, but I am not sure how long I would continue playing without knowing I will be with good friends on the first tee the majority of the time.
After 40
When I was younger I tried to play the power game, that never really panned out for me. I tore my ACL just before turning 30 and that changed my game completely. I learned how to swing under control and "learned how to score". Most importantly, I learned that I needed to concentrate on every swing instead of worrying about what number I was posting per hole. Since then I have been pretty consistent mid 80's player (with the occasional round in the 90's). My kids activities have kept me from playing as often as I used to, Hopefully that will change since my youngest has taken up this game and always wants to go to the range or out to play a quick 9.
After 40. I started playing in high school but just when I started to occasionally break 90 I went off to college and didn't start playing again until I was in my early 30s. I was disappointed for quite a few years because I never got any better than I was in high school. I kept a handicap at my regular course and it was typically 20-21.
In my early 40s I started getting more interested in equipment and ways to improve my game. That was when titanium drivers had come on the scene and kept getting bigger, so it was a fun time. I broke 80 for the first time at age 45 (and a few more times over the next few years) but I was never able to find much consistency. I would shoot 82 and the next week 92. My handicap got to 14 and stayed around there for a few years.
In my mid 50s I've had some struggles. Handicap went up to 19. I have battled it back down to 16. It has nothing to do with driving distance. Sometimes I can't even seem to hit a wedge on the green.
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Sneakylong
First of all good playing, my best during my 60's was a 69 at the age of 66 and 71and 72 at the age of 69. After that my game went in the toilet and someone flushed it and now it is all gone to he!! 