Ian Baker- Finch has reached the age when senior professional golf is a career option and last week he made his debut in California.

For so many over 50s, the Champions Tour in America has been a chance for a whole new life in competitive golf and over the three decades it has been going it has been dominated by fantastic players including Lee Trevino, Hale Irwin and now the German Bernhard Langer.

All three were competitive players on the main tour well into their 40s and once they were again playing against contemporaries they accumulated titles in abundance.

Ian won The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale in 1991, playing a brilliant 29 on the front nine on Sunday and blowing the field away.

Extraordinarily for one who hit so straight, he completely lost his ability to drive the ball with any confidence and if you have the yips with the driver you might be in more trouble that someone with the putting yips. Langer proved a few times that the jerky putter can be overcome but if you don't know where to aim off the tee there isn't a chance to play with any confidence.

Ian ground out a few absolutely miserable years on the tour with almost literally nothing to show for it and decided to walk up the ladder to the commentary booth.

It's a nice life. The television companies pay well and his employer, the CBS network, broadcast maybe 15 weeks a year leaving plenty of time for a few corporate outings and golf with friends on the spare weeks.

Finchy loves to play and, every week he works, he seeks out the best courses in the area to play and by all accounts he plays terrific golf.

The great amateur Bobby Jones once noted that there were two types of golf - tournament golf and social golf - and the two don't bear much relationship to each other.

Jones knew exactly how the thought process changes once you are playing competitively and it takes confidence and good technique to cope with the pressure.

It is fair to say Baker-Finch was disappointing last week, shooting a couple of 74s either side of an ugly second-round 79 and finishing close to the bottom of the field. It will take a while to get used to playing again but my guess is that Ian is not going to do as Trevino did and reverse the walk back down the ladder of the commentary booth and back to the first tee.

The problem is that social golf can be fun for former tour players if they are inspired by the course or enjoy the company of friends but there is no thrill in hitting good shots because the real rush it hitting them under the pressure.

Ian, I am sure, wants to feel that rush again but equally surely he doesn't want to endure poor shots, poor scores and weeks of grinding away at the far end of the field.

Your correspondent is writing from Beijing where yesterday I was lucky enough to spend three hours in the hotel lobby with Tom Weiskopf. He was one of the most majestic players of all time and won The Open at Troon in 1973.

One of the things he touched on was the fate of three players, Marty Fleckman, Baker-Finch and David Duval: ''Over my time in the game they were the three players who lost it the quickest,'' he said.

Fleckman led the 1967 U.S Open after three rounds as an amateur and at the end of that year he won his first tour event as a pro. ''He was a tremendous player,'' said Weiskopf, ''but within a couple of years he couldn't hit the course''.

Duval won his Open Championship at Lytham in 2001 and, like the other two, he almost immediately disappeared from the top levels of the game. He has threatened recently to play some better golf and he did nearly win the US Open in 2009 in what would have been one of the biggest ever surprises in the game.

Only they really know what happened but the lesson for all is to never take the game for granted.