Cardio exercise is great for keeping yourself in shape and preparing your muscles for lengthy exercise and outdoor activities.  Golfers need cardio for several reasons, one it helps prepare your body for a long day on the golf course, keeps your heart rate down between shots, and can even help prevent injury. 

Each of the three cardio benefits listed above is critical for success on the golf course. Although not a high-impact sports like soccer or football, golf requires a fair amount of cardiovascular health to maintain performance on the course. On long summer days, golfers with poor cardiac health will find themselves cramping. Plus, the heat can be uncomfortable too, so wearing your bucket hat and looking into your cardio health is life-changing. 

If your muscular structure is not used to being stressed or variations in oxygen content, your performance will suffer. Increased cardiovascular health can even add distance to your shots by increasing muscle performance. As the heart is able to pump blood more efficiently through the body, oxygen is forced into muscles providing a boost in performance. Also, before a round of golf, you may enjoy an energizing caffeine-free GOLFERAID performance blend drink, the best golf drink on the market.

One thing that separates top-level golfers from the rest is being able to score big shots in critical moments. The brain is the control system of the body and the more oxygen going into the brain, the more rested and performing it becomes. Although many golfers ride in carts, walking a round of golf can be a cardio workout. Some courses have terrain differences, hills, and non-flat surfaces. 

Because cardio is not as important in golf as it is in marathon running or soccer, you can maintain healthy cardiovascular health without running for hours on end. A few ways to maintain cardio health include taking brisk walks or walking on an incline. If you don’t have access to a treadmill you can find a hilly location to walk up. 

Walking on an incline has a lot of benefits compared to walking flat. Not only is the cardio workout better compared to walking on a flat surface, but it is also a better workout for your legs. Again, you don’t need to be sprinting up hills to receive a good cardio workout. 

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Looking at golf from a cardio perspective, if you walked a 7000-yard course, it translates to roughly 4 miles. If you are able to walk 4 miles a week, you will be able to manage walking a course. Breaking down the 7000 yards even further, taking an average hole length of roughly 400 yards which is about a quarter-mile. Walking a quarter mile is only one time around a track which can be done in a few minutes’ time. 

Going deeper, your longest continuous walk on a golf course will be between 250 and 300 yards, likely from the tee box. This is under a quarter-mile. A good tip to keep yourself in golf cardio shape is finding a short hill and walk up and down it several times a day. And of course, a good pair of golf shoes is a must. A quarter-mile only takes ten to fifteen minutes depending on how fast you are walking.

C O N C L U S I O N

Overall good cardio health is needed to maintain a consistent golf game. You don’t necessarily have to be a marathon runner to get in excellent golf cardio shape. A short quarter-mile walk every day will give you enough stamina and strength to play an entire round of golf without any issues. 

Cover photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jordan Fuller is a retired golfer who also owns a golf publication site, Golf Influence. He has loved golf since he was a kid and feels golf has been significantly helpful in improving his overall health. 

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