Skip to: Main Navigation | Main Content
or try the A-Z Library
Playing golf can add five years to your life, say Swedish researchers. It's not so much how you swing the club, but how much walking you do.
For those who don't play it, golf is a hard game to take seriously.
Not so for golf fans. Of all the sports, it's the one most likely to dominate a person's thinking. After all, when did you last hear someone say, with a sigh: "Jeez, I wish I could give it all away, retire, and spend my time playing Aussie Rules"?
Golf tragics, slicing their way up the fairway and hacking their way out of the rough, are a common sight in Australia. We have the third highest number of golf courses per head of population in the world.
Oddly, though, you won't often hear golf promoted in the same breath as swimming, jogging, or gymnastics as a form of exercise.
Which is a pity, because it's very good exercise particularly for men and women in older age groups who don't see themselves as good gym material. It helps improve stamina, cardiovascular fitness and muscular endurance.
In fact, golfers live five years longer than everyone else. At least, that's what Swedish researchers say. In a study of roughly 300,000 Swedish golfers, they found that the death rate among golfers was 40 per cent lower than the rest of the Swedish population, and this equated to an increased life expectancy of five years. The lower the handicap, the greater the golfer's life expectancy (because the lower the handicap, the more golf they played).
It's not so much the game itself that provides the exercise. It's the walking a golfer does up and down the fairway, an average of seven kilometres every 18-hole round that does it.
Another plus is that compared to other sports like football or soccer, golf is a low-risk sport. It ranks as number 13 in the list of sports that cause injuries, according to the Sports Injury Prevention Unit at Deakin University in Victoria. Serious injuries are rare probably the biggest risk is hitting someone else with a driving shot. (But that's why golfers yell 'fore!' so they can say afterwards, "I told you to get out of the way!")
But that's not to say there are no injuries at all. Golf strokes involve a lot of rotation of the spine and strain on the shoulders, elbows and wrists. If golfers don't get their golf swing technique right, they can stress these joints and ligaments and cause recurrent neck, shoulder, lower back and arm and hand injuries. Professionals, and amateurs who play more than six hours a week, are especially prone to overuse injuries in these joints.
Lifting heavy bags of golf clubs, and bending down to pick up and put down balls and tees, can also injure the back.
Also, golfers don't tend to warm up before they play, which makes injury more likely. A recent study from the Sports Injury Prevention Unit at Deakin University found that less than three per cent of Victorian golfers warm up properly, while nearly half don't warm up at all.
One of the new developments in golfing over the past decade or so is the motorised golf cart a small, battery-powered, vehicle with two to four seats plus enough room to carry golf clubs.
These carts are ideal for people who get back pain and aching limbs from lugging golf bags up and down fairways, or people who simply don't want to walk. They're quiet and fun to operate and they're getting faster and more powerful as time goes on.
They're also causing more injuries. A US study published this month by researchers from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, found a sharp increase in golf-cart-related injuries reported to hospital emergency departments over the past decade and a half they rose by 132 per cent between 1990 and 2006.
Falling (or jumping) from the cart was the most common cause of injury, especially after doing a sharp turn at high speed. Most injuries were bruises or other soft-tissue injuries, mainly to the legs and feet. But injuries to the head and neck and concussion were also common. About a third of the injuries occurred in children under 16.
The message is, if you're going to use a golf cart, drive slowly, and brake slowly, especially on downhill slopes, say the researchers. Avoid sharp turns at high speeds. Don't let kids younger than six years of age ride in golf carts, or kids younger than 16 drive them.
In Australia, motorised golf carts aren't as popular as they are in the US. It's partly because the golf courses don't like them the public liability they cause is a big issue. But most golf courses in Australia have a few, mostly to hire to people with disabilities (who need a medical certificate to hire them).
Some golf courses mainly those linked to big tourist resorts in Queensland with large numbers of US and Asian golfers do hire them out to all players, provided they're over 18 and agree to certain conditions of use, such as not to drive them nears bunkers or greens.
But most golfers here would rather walk the fairways, for the exercise and to chat with other players, says David Greenhill, Director of Golf at the Victorian Golfing Association.
More popular here, he says, are buggies to carry your gear, fitted with a small motor powered by a rechargeable battery. You can hire them from most courses or buy your own for between $300 to $1000.
You can take along those extra woods, chipping irons and accessories without straining your back, but you still get to do the walking and you'll still get those five years of extra life the Swedes say you're entitled to.
You can use those years to improve your game and lower your handicap which of course is the true purpose of life.