Yeah, right: Bad golf scores may actually be good for your health

        The next time you top a golf shot or hit your drive into the woods and take the maximum allowed five minutes to look for your ball, consider that you are actually lowering your stress levels and improving your health. The logic may seem counterintuitive, but follow along. (You might want to strap that blood pressure monitor around your bicep while you read this.)

        In a Sept. 5 article in the Bergen (N.J.) Record, senior golfers testified that golf has helped them remain vigorous and, in at least one case, alive. “If it wasn’t for golf,” says 87-year-old James Davino, “I think I’d be dead.”

        Davino, who took up the game at age 63 and previously had suffered two heart attacks and other health issues, says the walking in fresh air with friends lowers his stress levels. “I don’t even keep score,” he added.

        With all health providers in agreement that daily or even weekly

The worse you play, the more you walk.  The more you walk, the healthier you are.

walkabouts promote improved health, the benefits of cartless golf are clear, but the reporter who wrote the story for the Record indicated that even those who use a golf cart experience up to 30 minutes of walking per round, better than nothing. I’ll be sure to mention that to my GP during my next physical exam when he renders his annual admonishments about my lack of beneficial exercise.

        Importantly, the article also points out how lousy golfers actually may have an advantage over those who play golf the way it was meant to be played. Consider that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Accomplished golfers hit the ball much straighter than the rest of us. Those poor suckers will walk no more than 4 or 4 ½ miles per round, but the rest of us, searching left and right and high and low for our errant golf balls, might walk as much as a mile farther per round. Following an unassailable logic train, if walking is good for you and high scores promote more walking, then high golf scores are better for you than low golf scores. And bad golfers may live longer than good golfers.

        Now instead of moaning over a post-round beer about all my bad shots, I can say with confidence that I feel great about it.

        To read the full Bergen Record article, click here.


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