If you enjoy hacking your way around the local golf course on a Sunday but are constantly getting a hard time from the other half for spending too much time away from home, it seems you now have a perfect excuse.
A study carried out by Macmillan Cancer Support shows that the health benefits of golf are seemingly being a little overlooked.
Golf may not get your pulse racing the way rugby and soccer does, but according to Macmillan, as reported in the Daily Mail, in one typical round of golf, players can walk between four and eight miles.
This totals between 11,245 and 16,667 steps, sending your fit bits into over-drive. A normal round of golf takes around 240 minutes of moderate intensive activity, and the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) recommend that an adult has 150 minutes of moderate intensive activity a week. So realistically, in one game of golf, you are getting more than a week's worth of exercise. And for bonus points if you carry your own golf clubs, this would burn around 1,564 calories, and you don't even have to run.
Also if you keep golfing, it seems that your life expectancy will also increase. Research carried out on 300,000 Swedish golfers found that the death rate for golfers is 40 per cent lower, compared to those who are the same age, sex and socioeconomic status. So basically, this will add an extra five years onto your life, and that's for the least skilled golfers. So maybe the better you are, the longer you will live.
Although, we are pretty sure for all this to work, you are gonna to have to sacrifice the golf buggies. This means carrying your own bag of clubs, and walking to the next hole after you have teed off. But if you live an extra five years, who is complaining?
Macmillan carried out this research ahead of a charity event called 'The Longest Day Challenge'. It will take place of the summer solstice, 21st June, which will see golfers play four rounds of golf over 16 hours, all for charity.
