Golf is one of the few sports that can be played from when you are a child to when you are a mature adult. Playing golf is great for both your physical and mental wellbeing, and can actually add years to your life. Studies have shown that playing golf regularly can reduce risk factors for strokes and heart disease, improve strength and balance in older people, as well as improving mental and overall health. Golf is a social, lifetime sport that will offer countless opportunities for competition and learning, as well as social networking and spending time with friends and family. For more about the amazing benefits of golf, click here.
Many people are still playing a handy round of golf well into their 90s (and sometimes older!). More and more older people are frequenting golf courses as the average age at golf clubs is increasing. Golf really can be a sport for lifetime for those with a passion for the game.
To make sure that you’ll be able to play the game you love for as long as possible, follow these tips:
Learn the techniques well
When you’re learning golf, it’s important to learn proper movement patterns, so that you have a solid technique for life. If you start out with poor technique, it’s not going to improve with age – so get some lessons from a golfing professional when you’re starting out. You need to learn slowly at first, so that you reinforce correct techniques and good positions, rather than training faulty movements. The more you repeat something, the more efficient your body becomes at doing it – whether it’s wrong or right. Golf is one of the most technically demanding and complex sports, so it’s important to get it right from the start, so you have a good foundation for a lifetime of strong golf performance. For some handy tips on golf technique, click here.
Maintain your fitness
Far from being a non-demanding sport, golf places a lot of physical demands on players. For optimal performance, golfers need a combination of cardiovascular fitness, mobility, strength and stability to achieve the correct body positions. Golfers need strong leg, arm, chest, hand, trunk, hip and abdominal muscles to produce an efficient swing, and this strength and fitness needs to be maintained as you get older. A lack of or reduction in functional fitness could not only lead to poor performance, but also aches, pains and injuries. If you want to be able to play golf for life, make physical fitness a priority.
Warm-up properly
To keep yourself in the best shape for golf and help prevent any injuries, a proper warm up is a must. This should prepare your body for the exertion to come. Do some type of exercise that will get your heart rate up, then stretch some of the common problem areas, including neck, shoulders, hips and ankles. Follow this with some practice shots in the driving range or practice area. A proper warm up routine will help reduce the chance of injuries and reduce aches and pains post-game.
Deal properly with niggles and injuries
As with any sport, golf can be the cause of injuries. The golf swing can be taxing on the lower back, generating significant spinal compressive forces. In fact, back pain is the number one injury experienced by both amateur and professional golfers.
Overuse injuries can occur with inadequate fitness, poor technique and insufficient warm-up. The chances for such injuries increase as we get older, so it’s important to address these factors. If an injury does occur, make sure you rest it and treat it with anti-inflammatory medications. See experienced professionals, such as physios or chiropractors, to help you recover from overuse injuries. And don’t neglect any little niggles either – chances are they won’t go away if you just leave them alone! Get them checked out by a professional, so that you can learn the best way to prevent such niggles from becoming full-blown injuries.
Modify when necessary
As we become older, our levels of physical strength, endurance, flexibility and control tend to drop. Don’t let this stop you from playing golf, however. There are ways you can modify your practices and techniques so that age needn’t slow you down too much. You can adapt your posture, stance, grip, swing and ball position to allow for the physical declines that come with age. You can also modify your equipment to better suit your more senior game. Senior shafts are lighter and more flexible than regular ones, which will help improve your ball flight. A larger grip size will allow you to better grip the club and increase the power of your strokes.
And don’t forget to modify your thinking and expectations when necessary too – you may not be able to hit the ball as far as you once could, but that’s only natural. Try not to be frustrated, but make plans to adapt your game to give yourself the best chance of a good round – at any age.
For some great tips on how to modify your game as a senior golfer, click here.
Use a golf buggy if necessary
Walking around the course can be tiring and put a lot of strain on your body, particularly as you get older. To save your strength for your game, invest in a golf buggy. You can choose either a walker or a ride-on model, depending on your level of mobility. Using a golf buggy will enable you to keep playing for as long as possible. To see Parmaker’s range of quality golf buggies, click here.
Golf is the ideal sport to play for a lifetime and offers many benefits to players young and old. Follow these tips to be able to enjoy the game for as long as you can, and as pain and injury-free as possible.
