What do doctors have to say about golf  

Article reprinted by permission, Golf Health, Oct 2009

Believe it or not, golf is actually good for your health. Even the United States Golf Association thinks so; they also advise that you should walk the golf course and try to avoid – as much as possible – riding golf carts.  

Although riding golf carts is the most convenient way to get yourself from one hole to the next, it will actually be good for your body if you walk your legs along the greens.  Doing so pumps your heart, circulates the blood all over your body, and is a good and fun way of exercising.  

David Fay from the United States Golf Association also thinks that the most pleasurable way to play golf is by walking.  Riding carts, he said, should as much as possible be stopped now. 

Walking is a good form of exercise.  It is the most basic and easy program of getting fit which almost anyone could do. Simply put, walking is good for you.   

Although some believe that walking the golf course is a very unhealthy thing to do because of the nature of the game – the start and stop process of golf playing.  In actuality though, there have been scientific studies as well as evidence of people actually telling their personal experiences on the positive effects of walking through a game of golf.   

In Sweden in particular, there are researchers who discovered that walking through a game of golf equals to about forty to seventy percent of intense workout in an aerobics class.  This is assuming that about eighteen holes were played.  

In another study by a cardiologist named Edward Palank, golfers who walked were found to be in a better state of health because the level of bad cholesterol in their body decreased.  Meanwhile, the level of their good cholesterol was steady.  Those golfers who settled to ride their way across the golf course on golf carts, however, did not show these same positive health results. 

Also, according to Golf Science International, four hours of golf playing was found to be comparable to attending a forty five minute fitness class. 

Another golf association, specifically the Northern Ohio Golf Association, stated that when a golfer walks across a course, it is roughly equivalent to walking for three to four miles.  This included walking around hills, over greens and tees.  

Not convinced yet?  Maybe you should try doing the following activities and see, as well as feel, the difference for yourself. 

During a round of golf, try to walk along alternating holes so that by the end of your round of golf you should be able to have walked through a total of nine holes.  

If you are feeling not up to it yet as fully as you should, that is okay.  Maybe you could try walking on a set of nines while you can ride the other set. 

If you have a golf partner and he or she insists that you ride along with him or her, make sure that you only ride on the path of the cart.   You can then walk down to the fairway towards your ball and then your partner could bring the golf cart up. 

Are you convinced yet?  If not, try to look at it this way.  If your health is not good enough for you to settle to walk those legs and pump that good old heart of yours, then at least take pity and be considerate of the damage that golf carts do to fairways.  

Believe it or not, golf carts do create damage around sand traps and around the greens.  Even if carts are not supposed to ride along these areas, sometimes though, depending on who is behind the golf cart’s wheel, they still at times do.  

For the sake of the greens, go walk!  Because of advances in technology, there are now grasses that are able to grow on areas that they originally are not supposed to grow on at all. As a result of this, golf courses look as amazing as they were before.  Unfortunately, these same golf courses are as subject to a lot of wear and tear as well.  

Driving a golf cart along these beautiful greens subjects them to unnecessary damage.  So now that you know, it would not hurt you to consider walking along, across, over, or through those greens now would it?