A) Balance Surfing

GOLF BENEFIT: Improves balance and pro-prioception (an awareness of where your body is in space), helping you swing the club faster and with greater control.

HOW TO DO IT: Stand barefoot on the roller, balancing for up to 30 seconds. When you can do this without falling, try a squat or standing on one leg. (Put both hands on a wall when starting out until balance improves.)

B) Snow Angels

GOLF BENEFIT: Forces shoulder blades to retract, reducing upper-back roundness; lengthens chest and shoulder muscles, allowing for a bigger shoulder turn.

HOW TO DO IT: Lie lengthwise on the roller, knees bent, feet flat. Slide arms up and down along the floor as if making a snow angel. Do 15 reps.

C) Knee-To-Chest Hold

GOLF BENEFIT: Engages abdominals for a stronger core; stretches lower back and glutes for better posture during the swing.

HOW TO DO IT: Lie lengthwise on the roller, knees bent, feet flat. Cross arms over chest and slowly bring the right knee toward your chest, stop­ping when the thigh is perpendicular to the ground. Hold for 20 seconds. Do three reps on each leg.

D) Thigh Roll

GOLF BENEFIT: Massages the iliotibial band (a fibrous tissue that stabilizes the knee and hip), improving pelvic range of motion for a more powerful swing.

HOW TO DO IT: Place roller just below right hip. Balancing on right forearm, roll your body up and down, keeping hips perpendicular to the floor so the roller massages the outer thigh. Massage each leg for two minutes.

On the one hand, there is Sorenstam, who has been temporarily sidelined with a neck injury. Only a year ago, Sorenstam won her third U.S. Women’s Open title and seemed prepared to add limitlessly to her 10 major championships. Now she’s trying to recuperate from ruptured and bulging disks, the type of ailments that could mean playing in pain, and which prompted Andre Agassi to end his tennis career last summer. Rehabilitation and motivation may be especially problematic for a 36-year-old who has accomplished nearly everything she set out to do in the games, and whose intense drive may be lessening as she explores fresh interests, such as her new golf academy.

Whatever Sorenstam‘s thoughts on retirement are, she should care­fully study the experience of Lopez, who is still strug­gling with the idea at age 50, and who offers cautionary lessons about comebacks. Even after Lopez announced that the 2002 season would be her last, she was never reconciled to quitting the game she loves and has played in 25 events since then. She recently dropped more than 30 pounds and declared last March that she still feels capable of competing against young studs like Paula Creamer. “I know I have to get in real good shape to try to compete with the young girls,” Lopez said. “But I think I still have the mental capac­ity to go out there and play good golf.” It’s a noble sentiment, but the problem is that Lopez hasn’t finished in the top 10 since 1998. In April she entered the Ginn Open and finished dead last in the field with rounds of 83 and 80.

Fans have a tendency to want their beloved stars to go out on top, becomingly, so that we can preserve our visions of them of them in their prime. We don’t want to see them battle with  physical decline. But that isn’t necessarily fair to them. Athletes are in the business of exhausting every last possibility in them, and it can’t be easy for them to reverse their competitive engines.

Many champi­ons find that the effort to stave off the inevitable becomes a contest in itself. After retiring twice from the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan played two relatively ordinary final seasons with the Washington Wizards, which may have disappointed his fans, but which gratified him personally “An itch to scratch,” he called his desire to keep play­ing. Asked if the comeback would be a letdown if he failed to make the playoffs, he simply replied, “Nope.” Kareem Abdul­ Jabbar enjoyed his last two seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, but once they were over he described retirement to me this way: “Your pride and vanity get in the ‘ray of dealing with it.”

Chris Evert was 34 and still a viable player when she decided to quit; she was tired of the pressure and wanted to start a family. Her retirement was relatively graceful, but even she found that life after competition felt aimless at first. “In the beginning, you want to be missed,” she told me. Once, when she was working as a broadcaster, she went out to hit tennis balls for pleasure and found herself on a court next to Steffi Graf, who was still at her peak. Evert changed courts, embar­rassed to be seen hitting less than well.

She vacillated between emptiness and relief, uncertain how to feel. Then one day it struck her: “My God, I don’t have to win and I don’t have to lose today. That’s free­dom.” Gradually, Evert got used to a more ordinary routine. She spent time with her kids, cooked dinners and visited her sister. “It should be an adjustment, not a catas­trophe,” she observed.

But more often than not, retirement is not a neat, graceful completion. Rather, it’s messy, open-ended and occasionally unflattering. It’s a difficult move to slip seamlessly into ordinary life at the end of an extraordinary career.

Bentley Continental GTC

MODEL YEAR : 2007

BEST FOR : Instilling extreme envy in the hearts of friends and strangers alike.

LOOKS : Elegant and ultrarefined.

ENGINE 6.0 liter twin, turbocharged 12 cylinder; 552 horsepower (hp).

PROS AND CONS : The stylish cabin is cocooned in sumptuous leather and boasts every bell and whistle imaginable, including an easy-to-use DVD navigation system and a Breitling clock. But as with all hardtop convertibles, the top takes up the entire trunk when down.

GOLF BAG CAPACITY : One in the trunk with top up, zero with top down.

HOW IT DRIVES: The Bentley is agile and fun. You’ll love the race-car rumble and the power on demand.

COOL OPTIONS : 19-inch alloy sport wheels, front-seat lumbar massage.

Porshe Cayenne Turbo

MODEL YEAR: 2008

BEST FOR : Shuttling your foursome and their bags in style-and burning up asphalt along the way.

LOOKS : Simple and stylish, with that iconic Porsche nose.

ENGINE: Supercharged 4.8 liter V8; 500 hp.

PROS AND CONS : The high-tech cockpit’s easy-to-use amenities include an optional hands-free call feature. While the elevated seat position offers a commanding view of the road, the high ground clearance may make getting in and out tough for a smaller, less-mobile adult.

GOLF BAG CAPACITY : Four.

HOW IT DRIVES : Though heavy, the Cayenne handles itself almost like a Porsche sports cat powerful, aggressive and even somewhat agile.

COOL OPTIONS : 21-inch sport wheels, power moon roof, Bose Surround Sound system.

Audi S6

MODEL YEAR : 2007

BEST FOR : Getting to and from the course at speeds that will terrify most old-school duffers.

LOOKS : Conservative yet classy.

ENGINE : 5.2 liter V10; 435 hp.

PROS AND CONS : This driving enthusiast’s version of the A6 sedan has a luxurious, impeccably crafted cockpit, with easy-to-read gauges and a simple-to-use multimedia interface in the console. While the bucket front seats held as in on the turns, our older passengers found them hard to get out of.

GOLF BAG CAPACITY : Two to three.

HOW IT DRIVES : Exhilarating and quick, with the responsiveness of a wunderbar German motorcar.

COOL OPTIONS : DVD navigation system, Sirius satellite radio and a rearview parking system that helps you avoid backing up into signposts and delivery trucks.

SUN MOUNTAIN SUPERLIGHT 3.5 WITH HUG TECHNOLOGY

Weighing in at less than four pounds, this new bag features a unique padded aluminum arm that fits snugly around your waist, transfer­ring most of its weight from your shoulders to your hips.

OGIO DIVA

Another featherweight at just over four pounds, the Diva has an innovative top
that keeps each wood separate for easy access. With a comfortable double strap and eight pockets, it’s everything a girl could want.

NIKE XTREME SPORT

This five-pound women’s bag features a double strap that becomes a single strap with a simple click. Extras include seven roomy pockets, a sturdy stand and six-way, full-length club dividers.

As Seymour tells her story, she is sitting in the spacious bathroom of her Malibu, Calif., home while a hairstylist and makeup artist fuss over her for a photo shoot. At 56, even in a pink robe and curlers, she has glamor to spare. Fine-boned and elegant, with long auburn hair and an unreduced face (yes, those are wrinkles, a sight rarely seen in Hollywood), she has a mature, self-assured beauty that served her well as the lusty politician’s wife in Wedding Crashers, the 2005 hit film that convinced Hollywood she could do comedy. Seymour remains every inch the former ballerina who dreamed of dancing with Russia’s Kirov Ballet before a knee injury redirected her into acting. With her clipped, precise speech and brisk manner, she could be the dance mistress put­ting her class through its paces at the barre.

Seymour and her husband, pro­ducer/director James Keach, are members of Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, Calif., home to two Jack Nicklaus layouts, one full-length course and one par 3. In 2006 the 18- hole course was closed for renovations, so every day for two months, Seymour played the par-3 course to prepare for the Wales tournament. Sometimes she had an instructor, but often she was alone.”There were two other people on the course: Bruce Jenner and Kenny G. The two obsessed golfers in our club and me. That course is so precise and small that you’re in all kinds of trouble if you don’t go straight. So I got really good at chipping and putting. And it paid off.”

The Northern Rock All-Star Cup was played in a Ryder Cup format: match play, best ball, and alternate shot. Each side had 11 celebrities, including British TV star Bruce Forsyth and model Jodie Kidd for Team Europe, and Kenny G, Meat Loaf, Alice Cooper and Seymour for Team USA. The Americans lost, but Seymour never gave up. On the final hole of the tour­nament, her partner, actor Aidan Quinn, hit the ball into a greenside bunker. It was her job to get out.

“There were huge crowds, it was the end of the day, the cameras were there, and I’m thinking, ‘Oh, this is impossible.’ I got down in the sand and I couldn’t even see the flag. I chipped the ball up, and then all of a sudden everyone starts roaring and I jumped up and the ball rolled, slowly but surely, right into the hole. The entire place went crazy. It was one of the greatest days of my life.”

Seymour has had a rich and varied life, but not every day has been as triumphant. Yet, like one of the indomitable heroines she’s known for, she approaches life’s challenges the same way she approaches golf: Accentuate the positive. In golf, Seymour rarely keeps score, preferring a system of her own invention.”When I hit a ball and it goes where I intended it to, I give myself a star. Because at least at the end of the day I can say that I had six shots that I felt really proud of.”

Seymour began life as Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenburg, the first of three daughters born to an English gynecologist and his Dutch wife. After her dance career was cut short at 17, she turned to act­ing. In 1973 she found fame playing Solitaire in Live and Let Die. While her cinematic career has been notable—Somewhere in Time, in which she starred opposite her good friend the late Christopher Reeve, has become a romantic classic—she is best known for her television work. Her made-for-TV films range from melodramas (Obsessed With a Married Woman) to prestigious miniseries (War and Remembrance and Onassis: The Richest Man in the World, for which her portrayal of Maria Callas earned her an Emmy). By the late ’80s, she’d been married three times and had two children, Katie and Sean, by her third husband, David Flynn, from whom she was later, divorced.

In 1990 she was on location in Scottsdale making Sunstroke for the USA Network. Her director, James Keach, a passionate golfer, invited her to play. “She did great,” Keach recalls, sitting at the kitchen table while waiting for their 11-year-old twins, John and Kris, to get ready for Little League. ‘And she was fun to look at standing over the ball.”

“I was very concerned about running into a snake,” Seymour says. “But every once in a while I’d get that ping, and that would make me feel, ‘Oh my gosh, I can do this, I want to do this.’”

In 1993 Seymour took the role that made her a household name: Michaela Quinn, the 19th-century pioneer doctor in Colorado who dispenses country medicine and feminist bromides in equal measure. She and Keach married that same year. At 43, Seymour began undergoing fertility treatments, and after two failed pregnancies, she gave birth to Kris and John in 1995. Three years later, when CBS canceled her series, she decided to do what many actresses of a certain age do (think ElizabethTaylor and Susan Lucci): lever­age her famous name into a business.

Seymour has always had a knack for design. In the 1960s, while still in high school, she started a small business embroidering see-through blouses for a London department store. In 2003 she launched the Jane Seymour Home Collection for Saks, Inc., and now owns the line through The Sommerset Group, her Birmingham, Alabama-based company. Her latest book, Making Yourself at Home, was pub­lished in April. This fall, the Jane Seymour Home Collection, her line of linens, pillows and candles sold on janeseyrnourhome.com, debuts in The Great Indoors, a Sears-owned chain.

Seymour and Keach’s other home is St. Catherine’s Court, a 1,000-year-old former monastery located on 15 acres near Bath, England.They have painstakingly restored and updated the home and rent it out most  of the year for $56,000 a week. NewYork Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez, whom Seymour and Keach met at a baseball game, has spent time there with his wife. “He asked me, ‘Where’s the gym?’” Seymour recalls. “I said, ‘You see that hill? That’s the gym.You run to the top and run down, avoiding the sheep.”

Since her golf triumph in Wales, Seymour’s other interests have kept her off the course more than she likes. Painting has become another passion, “like a drug,” she says. “Every weekend I say ‘Will I paint or will I play golf?’” She displays her work in galler­ies around the U.S., and her paintings—primarily floral motifs and portraits—have sold for as high as $35,000. When not guest-starring on TV shows like How I Met Your Mother, she’s on the road promot­ing her book and her Home Collection and making appearances for Running Dry, a documentary about the global drinking-water crisis, which Seymour nar­rates.”I’d be a better golfer if I didn’t have a thousand things going on,” she admits. But knowing her, she’ll find a As a spokesperson for Eons.com, a new website for over-50 baby boomers, Seymour created a list of 25 goals she’d like to accomplish before turning 100. Number 4: “Break 90 in golf.”

Mercedes-Benz CLS550

MODEL YEAR: 2007

BEST FOR : Thrill- seeking golfers who want to push it.

LOOKS : Low to the ground and gorgeous.

ENGINE : 5.5 liter 32-valve V8; 382 hp.

PROS AND CONS : The interior is richly appointed in leather and wood, and the uncluttered gauge cluster is easy to read. Loved the iPod interface, but the low roof made it a little difficult to get in and out of the cockpit.

GOLF BAG CAPACITY : Two to three.

HOW IT DRIVES : Firm, smooth and super powerful, it makes you feel like you own the road.

COOL OPTIONS : Tele-Aid roadside assistance, cockpit management and data system with radio, CD player and color LCD navigation screen.

BMW 335i Convertible

MODEL YEAR : 2007

BEST FOR : Cruising to your favorite course-on the other side of the state.

LOOKS : Crisp and stylish, whether the top is up or down.

ENGINE : 3.0 liter 24-valve inline six cylinder; 300 hp.

PROS AND CONS : The leather upholstery has heat-reflective technology that can lower its surface temperature by as much as 36 degrees. (No more burning the backs of your legs on a hot day!) The hardtop disappears into the trunk in a mere 22 seconds, but it gobbles up trunk space when lowered.

GOLF BAG CAPACITY : One with top up. Zero with top down.

HOW IT DRIVES: The lightning-fast six-speed manual shifter and firm, athletic suspen­sion combine for an incredible experience.

COOL OPTIONS: 18-inch alloy wheels and sport-tuned suspension.

Land Rover LR2

MODEL YEAR : 2008

BEST FOR : Indulgent, everyday driving, from the golf course to the mall.

LOOKS : A cross between the LR3 and Range Rover Sport: stylish, simple and, of course, boxy.

ENGINE : 3.2liter aluminum-alloy inline six cylinder; 230 hp.

PROS AND CONS : This small sport-Ute has an upright, muscular stance, a well-planned interior layout, supportive leather seats and seating for five. The gauges could be brighter and bigger.

GOLF BAG CAPACITY : Four Golf Bag.

HOW IT DRIVES : Very stable and balanced, even when we pushed it hard. The engine delivered decent get-up-and-go and plenty of grunts for powering over speed bumps. All four wheels stayed firmly connected to the ground at all times.

COOL OPTIONS : GPS navigation system, Bluetooth integration, heated seats, heated windshield and windshield wipers.