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If you’ve never played golf, perhaps you’ll never understand the attraction. But if you’re like many celebrities–whether they’ve been playing for years or just recently began to tee it up–you’ll agree that the game has an unusual appeal that can consume you.

Golf has experienced a surge in popularity in recent years, so much so that the game–long and wrongly considered a less-than-physically-challenging sport–is inspiring yoga and Pilates workouts. Celebrity golfers, who often pay personal trainers big money to help them get in shape and help them stay physically fit–say there are some definite physical benefits associated with an outing on the links.

Experts say you can get the most out of a round of golf if you walk the course, the length of which can measure about 5 miles, depending on the course. Walking improves your cardiovascular health, builds endurance and allows you to burn a moderate amount of calories. If you carry your clubs, you can get an upper body workout as well. And hitting the ball actually can improve your hand-eye coordination, which can be useful in many other areas.

Many celebrities and professional athletes have begun playing to add another level of competition to their lives and to be able to spend more time together with their families, who are joining them on the course.
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Some players like Oakland Raiders cornerback Ray Buchanan love the sport so much that he and his wife, Sheree, built their dream home at Sugarloaf Country Club in Duluth, Ga., home of the PGA Tour’s Bellsouth Classic. Their multimillion-dollar mansion overlooks the 9th hole, and Buchanan, a former Pro-Bowler, plays two to three times a week during the off-season.
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I don’t often mention green maintenance in my golf lessons. Nor do I often discuss it in my golf tips. That’s because golfers want to talk about hitting the ball instead. But the care and feeding of a club’s greens—how they are mowed, watered, fertilized— can have a major impact on a player’s golf handicap, especially if he or she plays the same course a lot.

Speed is the key factor when considering green maintenance. Usually, players want a superintendent to increase green speed. It’s probably the most frequent request about greens. Occasionally, players want a superintendent to decrease green speed, but these requests are few and far between. Misjudging the speed of a putt can add strokes to a score, as I’ve mentioned in my golf tips.

The term “green speed” is technically inaccurate. The device measuring “speed” —the USGA Stimpmeter —gauges the distance a ball rolls when released at a controlled speed on a putting surface, not the ball’s velocity. To talk about green speed then is a bit of a misnomer. Nevertheless, we continue to use the term when talking about greens. (I even use it when giving golf lessons.) A green with a relatively long ball roll is considered “fast.” A green with a relatively short ball roll is said to be “slow.”

Ball roll relates to relationship between the initial energy when a putter strikes the ball and the resistance between the ball and the turf’s surface, or friction. As the ball rolls across the green, its surface slows it down thanks to friction. A green with high resistance slows a ball down more than a green with low resistance. Moderating friction changes a green’s speed.

Environmental factors, such as humidity, can moderate friction and change a green’s speed. For example, high humidity increases green speed, a consideration when playing on a hot day. Soil type also influences green speed. Greens made predominately of clay are faster in spring than their sandier counterparts. While superintendents have little or no control over these factors, they have minimal impact on your game.

Management practices, on the other hand, like mowing or irrigation, can make a profound impact on a green, both short-term and long-term. Below is a summary of how some popular management practices affect green speed.
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The newest golf clubs are much more high tech than even a few years ago. It seems easier than ever before to improve your game with a new golf club. The modern golf clubs are more lightweight and have larger sweet spots. They’re designed to help you hit more consistent shots, while allowing more room for mistakes. The old blade style (solid club head with no cavity back) golf clubs left no room for error. You had two choices, hit the golf ball perfectly or settle for a bad shot.

Does every new club you buy help to lower your score? We all wish it were that simple. Focusing solely on the invention of newer, better golf clubs can give you false hope. To explain: most of the amateur golfers out there now are expecting the golf club to fix problems with their swing. This attitude can leave you very frustrated and also help in emptying your wallet.

When the focus is on improving your game, there are many other aspects to consider. Sure, having a good set of well fitted clubs, and golf balls that perform better is helpful, but so is your training. The core to playing successfully in any sport is to have a proper routine that consists of strength, flexibility, and balance exercises, as well as consistent practice. Golf is no different. (more…)

Just how important is golf fitness and exercise to a golfer today in the modern game? Can a good amateur or even professional golfer do without it and still maximize their potential?

Will they still be able to enjoy their game and see constant improvements or at least consistency in their quality of play?

Those golfers who ask these sorts of questions about golf fitness and exercise sometimes nostalgically cast their minds back to the so called good old days of the golf game when the game was strictly a leisure sport where one hardly needed to break into a sweat to thoroughly enjoy themselves on the course.

The modern golf game has changed dramatically and permanently. Although golf is still very much the leisure sport that has given pleasure to thousands over the years even with the golf fitness and exercise programs. If anything these golf fitness and exercise programs have given many more people a chance to master the game much faster and really get to enjoy it.
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