A reader who told us that they tried to exercise four times a week wanted to know whether a round of golf could count towards their quota.
The short answer is yes. The longer answer is more nuanced.
A round of golf involves a lot of walking. Even if you take a cart, you still have to walk a fair amount, especially at those courses where carts have to stay on the cart path.
People are encouraged to walk 9,000 to 10,000 steps a day, although anything above 2,000 is reckoned to start lowering the risk of heart disease and circulatory issues.
A round of a full-length 18-hole course is estimated to involve taking between 11,000 and 14,000 steps.
So a round of golf achieves your daily step quota in one fell swoop. Even those golfers who tootle round in a buggy on a cart path are reckoned to clock up around 7,000 steps when they leave the buggy to walk to play their shots.
A round of golf also helps burn off the calories.
A study by University of Rochester Medical Center found that a 160-pound (72.5kg) person burns an estimated 252 calories per hour playing golf even when riding in a cart, and those who walk the course burn 396 calories an hour.
Limitations
But the answer to our reader’s question also depends on what specifically you wish from your exercise routine.
If it cardio vascular health, there are better exercises for this than golf. Although golf does bring cardio vascular benefits, other sports or exercises which involve running and perhaps getting out of breath, are more beneficial.
Similarly golf does not help those who are focussed on strength training.
As a low-impact cardiovascular exercise with dynamic rotational movements, golf places minimal stress on weight-bearing joints like the knees and hips compared with running.
This makes it a helpful activity for aiding mobility, especially for older adults. But yoga would be a better exercise if seeking to improve and retain mobility as it can stretch and strengthen every major muscle group which the repetitive golf swing does not.
Mental health
As we golfers get older, golf becomes increasingly appropriate as a form of exercise. It is low impact, but it gets us out into the fresh air taking exercise, while also providing mental stimulation and social engagement.
The later two can be important for mental health. Golf requires periods of sustained focus and problem-solving over several hours, and can give a sense of accomplishment and achievement.
These factors have benefits in terms of cognitive function and stress reduction. It may seem odd that that tricky downhill putt or that approach to a green over water form a downhill lie is helping to reduce our stress, but that is what the clever boffins who carry out these medical studies have divined.
Life expectancy
There is more good news. A report published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports by researchers at the Karolinska Institutet evaluated more than 300,000 Swedish golfers and found they had a 40% lower mortality rate compared with non-golfers, which equates to an increased life expectancy of about five years, regardless of age, gender, or socio-economic status.
The researchers attributed this to a combination of sustained low-to-moderate physical activity, mental stimulation, and social interaction.
Lower handicap golfers had a longer life expectancy on average than higher ones. So if you want to live long, play golf – and play it well.
