A Game to Help People (and the Planet?) Live Longer

If we could immediately solve just one of the United Nations’ seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, what would that be? Data suggest that golf might already contribute to the most important one: Good Health and Well-Being.

The R&A released its Golf and Health Report in early October, revealing findings on the health benefits of golf from a 2016-2020 research effort backed by public health experts including Dr. Andrew Murray of the University of Edinburgh. A scoping review conducted in 2016 analyzed 301 studies into the effects of golf on the physical and mental health of its participants. The recent report also cites primary research such as a “Spectator Study” and “Strength and Balance Study”. 

Some of its key findings include:

• Golfers live about 5 years longer on average (even after controlling for gender, age, and socioeconomic status)

• Golf participation can help prevent and treat 40 major chronic diseases

• Golf is classified as a moderate intensity activity

  • Players walk between 4-5 miles during a typical walking round (and burn up to 2,000 calories)

  • Spectators walk between 5-6 miles per day (and burn an average of over 1,000 calories)

Do golf’s measured benefits to the minds and bodies of roughly 60 million people who participate justify its challenges with the environment, which could ultimately affect 7.6 billion people? 

Given the benefits of nature toward human health, there seems no reason for such a trade-off to exist. Creating an industry that is ecologically regenerative and socially inclusive could provide health for both the planet and a variety of golf participants. It would be difficult to argue that golf provides more benefit than harm to the environment, but whatever its measured harms may be, the R&A’s Golf and Health report gives an important cause for celebration. 

By supporting the health and well-being of its participants, golf contributes to what is perhaps the primary pillar of sustainable development. As the UN puts it, “Healthy people are the foundation for healthy economies.” This is all the more true during a global pandemic.

Surprisingly, walking 18 holes can burn more calories than 3 hours of running, often without requiring a sweat. Golf confers benefits toward physical and mental well-being above most activities, and without the attendant strain and risk. Unlike football, basketball, and other major sports, golf’s benefits are available to all, including the elderly and physically disabled. 

Some counter-arguing critics might point to the effects of powered carts, beer bellies, melanoma, and toxic chemical inputs on reducing lifespan, but data from the Golf and Health report present otherwise. In the aggregate, golf appears to improve lifespan, despite some remaining negative externalities.

As a sport played from ages “4 to 104” (as the R&A report puts it), golf encourages the balance, mobility, posture, and cognition required to extend lifespan and more importantly “healthspan” (that is, the span of lifetime in which a person is in good health and free of chronic illness).

Nevertheless, an exciting possibility remains on the table.

We can design a golf industry that measurably improves the lives of its participants while improving the ecosystem services of the land on which it is played. Golf could then present itself as a way not only to connect mind and body, but also a way to reconnect with nature, which might ultimately accelerate its health benefits.