Ben Hogan, Mickey Wright, Sam Snead, Patty Berg, Kathy Whitworth, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Dame Laura Davies, Seve Ballesteros, Sir Nick Faldo, Annika Sorenstam, Tiger Woods, Michelle Wie, Rory McIlroy, Se Ri Pak, Bryson DeChambeau…Over the years there have been many, many golfers who have changed the face of the game and, among other great achievements, have led to the adoption of various practices being employed as strategies for improved performance.

As sports science research and applied practice has developed, so too has the engagement of golfers seeking to gain advantages out on the course and indeed, some of the names above have contributed to professionals of the sport not only being viewed as golfers, but as athletes too. We have previously presented advice on where athletes of the game should be looking to monitor and optimize the moderators of internal load; these link directly to some of the areas we discuss here.

In this blog we present five areas that can help to optimize you, the golfer and ultimately, the athlete.

Warming-up for golf: The unmistakable Miguel Ángel Jiménez warm-up certainly turns heads, and as sports science research has developed, golfers are more aware of the benefits of a warm-up strategy. This becomes apparent when you look at examples from the European Tour where golfers are using resistance, dynamic stretching and other modalities before playing to enhance performance.

Coaches are also increasingly advocating the use of effective warm-ups on the range with amateurs and professionals alike. Furthermore, national performance development pathways also have high expectations of warm-up routines from their junior golfers in the knowledge that it’s possible to produce increase clubhead speed, ball speed and drive distance as a result.

Strength and conditioning: While there were individuals before him, Tiger certainly progressed the idea of using strength and conditioning to enhance performance out on the course. Nowadays, those who aren’t engaging in S&C are in the minority in the professional game. This is perhaps yet to be the case in the amateur game, but there’s certainly a drive to get in the gym and increase strength and speed. You only have to look on social media to see the number of trainers offering golfers programmes and advice on exercises to know there’s an appetite for more.

Nutrition and hydration: These are two areas where very little research has been done to date focusing on the sport of golf. However, they both hold importance for performance and recovery, adaptations to training, and health, which are all relevant to the modern golfer seeking an optimized competitive advantage (Close, Pugh, & Morton, 2018).

Alongside physical preparation, nutrition and hydration research from other sports provide many transferable strategies to inform golfers’ fuelling and recovery. This is possible because, after all, we are dealing with humans. This doesn’t change from one sport to the next, but the application of strategies and principles may vary. As an example, golfers who also train regularly should be advised to consume 4-5 g/kg of body mass of carbohydrate per day (Burke, Hawley, Wong, & Jeukendrup, 2011), however this can be manipulated further to meet individual energy balance and weight management goals.

Blood glucose has been found to significantly decline during rounds of golf, which could result in poor decision making, focus and impair the motor performance if the decline is severe enough (Broman et al., 2004; Welsh, Davis, Burke, & Williams, 2002). Eating carbohydrates may offset this decline. Other research (Hayes et al., 2009) found significant reductions in blood glucose concentration during the front nine of a golf round, but no further reductions after consumption of a standardised carbohydrate snack halfway through the round.

With regards hydration, it is well established that sweating rate and sweat electrolyte concentrations can vary widely within and among individuals (Barnes et al., 2019), therefore during-exercise fluid recommendations should be based on individual sweat losses for the specific conditions.  While this may sound vague, what it does point to is that tried and tested strategies are key for each individual and advice from sports nutritionists is important to optimize an untapped area in your game.

While we appreciate this may take a little more effort to plan your meals, snacks and fluid intake, it is possible to create a straightforward, beneficial plan with the right advice for the conditions or environment you are training or playing in.

Sleep: This may be of particular interest for golfers as inadequate sleep has be shown to have negative effects on recovery and on both physical (e.g., accuracy and submaximal strength; Fullagar et al., 2015) and neurocognitive performance (e.g., attention, learning, and executive function; Killgore, 2010), with golfers utilising a combination of these attributes to practice, train and compete.

Golfers, like other athletes, face unique hurdles in the pursuit of optimal sleep; practice, S&C, and competition schedules, travel, and competition anxiety may all affect sleep quality and / or quantity (Lastella, Lovell, & Sargent, 2014; Sargent et al., 2014). Despite the need for further research to understand the impact of poor sleep on golf-specific outcome measures, golfers should seek out strategies and adopt chronic behaviours that avoid the potential negative effects of inadequate sleep. As we have previously discussed, there are several ways to optimize your sleep to boost performance in both the gym and on the course.

Where do you start? Well, in the first instance, go back and check out the infographic again for tips and initial strategies. Having an understanding of each area is useful to allow you to monitor and adapt strategies where and when required. Speaking to your coach can open discussions about various aspect that impact on performance. They may be able to provide simple solutions to begin with (e.g., establishing an effective warm-up routine), or help you to build a team of experts around you to help optimize you (i.e., your daily wellness, health, and wellbeing) and your performance.

References:

Barnes, K. A., Anderson, M. L., Stofan, J. R., Dalrymple, K. J., Reimel, A. J., Roberts, T. J., … Baker, L. B. (2019). Normative data for sweating rate, sweat sodium concentration, and sweat sodium loss in athletes: An update and analysis by sport. Journal of Sports Sciences, 37(20), 2356–2366. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2019.1633159

Broman, G., Johnsson, L., & Kaijser, L. (2004). Golf: A high intensity interval activity for elderly men. Aging – Clinical and Experimental Research, 16(5), 375–381.

Burke, L. M., Hawley, J. A., Wong, S. H. S., & Jeukendrup, A. E. (2011). Carbohydrates for training and competition. Journal of Sports Sciences, 29(SUPPL. 1). https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2011.585473

Close, G. L., Pugh, J., & Morton, J. P. (2018). Nutrition for golf. In M. Toms (Ed.), Routledge International Handbook of Golf Science (pp. 357–368). Oxon: Routledge.

Fullagar, H. H. K., Skorski, S., Duffield, R., Hammes, D., Coutts, A. J., & Meyer, T. (2015). Sleep and Athletic Performance: The Effects of Sleep Loss on Exercise Performance, and Physiological and Cognitive Responses to Exercise. Sports Medicine, 45(2), 161–186. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-014-0260-0

Hayes, P. R., Van Paridon, K., French, D. N., Thomas, K., & Gordon, D. A. (2009). Development of a simulated round of golf. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 4(4), 506–516. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.4.4.506

Killgore, W. D. S. (2010). Effects of sleep deprivation on cognition. Progress in Brain Research, 185, 105–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-53702-7.00007-5

Lastella, M., Lovell, G. P., & Sargent, C. (2014). Athletes’ precompetitive sleep behaviour and its relationship with subsequent precompetitive mood and performance. European Journal of Sport Science, 14(S1), 123–130. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2012.660505

Sargent, C., Lastella, M., Halson, S. L., & Roach, G. D. (2014). The impact of training schedules on the sleep and fatigue of elite athletes. Chronobiology International, 31(10), 1160–1168. https://doi.org/10.3109/07420528.2014.957306

Welsh, R. S., Davis, J. M., Burke, J. R., & Williams, H. G. (2002). Carbohydrates and physical/mental performance during intermittent exercise to fatigue. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 34(4), 723–731. https://doi.org/10.1249/00005768-200204000-00025