Golf is unlike most professional sports in that older players are still found at the professional level. Certainly a 60-something year old man wouldn't make it out of an football or hockey game alive these days. However many older professional golfers are still swinging the clubs with the young men of the PGA and having success doing so.

Tom Watson (59-years-old) opened up the 2009 Open Championship in Scotland with an impressive 5-under 65, second only to Miguel Jimenez who came in to the clubhouse one stroke lower. Just thirty-two years prior at the very same course, Watson and Jack Nicklaus played the famous "Dual in the Sun", in which both players were tied with three holes left to play. Watson outlasted Nicklaus for the championship in what some writers and fans have called the "best golf ever".

Watson isn't the only experienced golfer to do well in recent memory. Greg Norman held the 54 hole lead at the 2008 Open Championship and shot a 2-under 70 a year later at The Masters in Augusta. For that matter, Jimenez is not a young man anymore either (45-years-old).

So why do these veteran golfers get the best of the young guns on the tour? Certainly experience has something to do with the recent success of golfers like Norman and Watson. However there has to be more to it than simple years of dedication.

I believe these players play more relaxed than their younger counterparts. Watson has won 5 Open Championships already in his long career. The pressure to go out and win another title is substantially less than what Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson would face. I myself am a scratch golfer and I play better when I don't care what the final outcome will be.

Guys like Watson and Norman aren't out for another title or the millions of dollars in tournament earnings. They simply want to play the sport they love and have a little fun along the way. Young atheletes in all sports can learn something from these guys.