For a lot of golfers, there’s a lot of different reasons why people play the game. For one of those reasons is often to keep fit, and I think golf is a fantastic game to keep fit. It’s not overly strenuous, we very rarely suffer too many injuries, but actually when you’re out in the golf course you could be out there four hours, you could be walking at least four to five miles. If you just look at the yardage of a golf course, 6000 plus yards, then you’ve got the distance to go from one green to the following tee plus the fact that we don’t all play golf in a really straight line, we sometimes go left and right and around the hole a couple of times, so walking around the golf course is a fantastic exercise.

If you play a golf club that makes you ride the cart around the golf course which some golf courses do, that’s fine, there’s still plenty of exercise to do there, leaving the cart, walking across to your golf ball, walking back again. If you’re playing golf for fitness, try and make sure that you walk quickly between your shots, walk briskly particularly going up hills and don’t get lazy by bringing the cart too close to the golf ball, keep it on the car park, stride across through to your golf ball.

Then when you get to the golf ball take your time. One thing I do see people do when they ride in the cart is often like they drive there in a million miles an hour, jump out while it’s still running, and hit the golf ball on the run. Try and relax yourself, take a couple of deep breaths, nice little practice swinging away from the golf ball, when you feel your heart is right dropping and you’re comfortable again, then step forwards and go and hit the shot. That’s one thing for sure playing golf is great for your all around fitness.