Golfers are indeed athletes

We continue to share Ron Kapriske’s article “Who says golfers aren’t athletes?” in the September of Golf Digest (GD), part of which we featured last week. In last week’s column, we featured Kapriske’s interview of the 6’4”, 190-pound PGA Tour star, Dustin Johnson (who’s built like a basketball player but trains like a triathlete) who said, “If you want to play at this (elite) level, you’d better get in the gym, or you’re gonna get lapped.”

Kapriske also refers to an interview he had with Randy Myers, fitness coach to several top golfers. Myers says “that’s (referring to Johnson) the kind of body you’re going to see more and more of out on tour: taller, stronger, more flexible”. Myers adds, “We’re only beginning to see what the sport will be like once it’s overrun with high-level athletes”. Kapriske then asks, “How scary could things get? Maurice Allen, a 29-year-old former college track sprinter who took up golf just last year, recently had his driver swing speed clocked at 162.7 miles per hour (mph). That’s 50 mph faster than the PGA Tour average. At a long-drive competition in Texas, Allen hit a ball 4442 yards.”

Another example of physical conditioning to be competitive in golf nowadays is Gary Woodland who ranked sixth on the PGA Tour in driving distance (305.4 yards) at the end of June. Kapriske describes Woodland drive off the tee as “falling somewhere between the collision of two football helmets…and a high-powered rifle shot”. And to think that Woodland is doing what he describes as his “70 percent swing” often with a three wood after recovering from a surgery on his left shoulder.

Woodland fitness trainer, Dave Herman says one of Woodland’s gifts is his ability to synchronize his body in an athletic movement. But in addition, Woodland, a stocky 6’1”, has a 30-inch vertical leap and could no doubt have pursued a career in a variety of sports. He was a high school all-star in baseball and played a year of college hoops at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas.

Perhaps the earliest example of a golfer who has taken physical conditioning and gym work seriously is Tiger Woods.

As Woods was starting to dominate golf, he was asked why he doesn’t join the rest of the golfers after a round and have a few beers with them in the bar or lounge. The interviewer said that the practice of joining fellow competitors for drinks for the night was an established one and helped golfers relax and loosen up for the next day. Woods replied, “That (practice) doesn’t work anymore.”

Tommy Manotoc, former Philippine national amateur golf champion, says that Woods probably overdid his desire to remain in shape by running on hard pavement for miles to build up his strength and endurance. Manotoc says this regimen could have been one of the reasons for the knee injury that has been bothering Woods over the last several years.

In effect, because of Woods intense physical preparation, Tom Callahan of GD says “it was Woods, who in the late 1990s wiped the sardonic grin off that old debate about golfers being real athletes or not.”

One of the reasons for that debate is caused by the fact that some of the world’s top-rated golfers, then and now, don’t have those sinewy bodies in the mold of Woods, Johnson and Woodlands, and instead go around with semi pot bellies. To this Manotoc says, “Sure, some can get away with it but there’s still nothing like being in good physical shape through exercise and the proper diet.”

Callahan says that almost from the beginning, Woods preferred the gym even to the practice range. He says that one early morning in the gym, Woods looked up from an exercise machine to a tape of Ernie Els on a monitor swinging in his usual easy but powerful fashion. Woods said aloud, “He (Els) makes it look so easy,” but that was never Woods’ style. He always swung his hammer ferociously.”

This physical exertion in golf that is often belittled by those who are not knowledgeable about the physical demands of golf and the stress on certain body parts, are responsible for the end of many golf careers. Callahan says that, with most golfers, the back goes first. Near the end, Lee Trevino’s lumbar region compelled him to hang upside down in hotel doorjambs and wear a girdle. But with Woods, like a lot of athletes, the legs went first.

Having cited more than a handful of examples of the physical aspects of golf, it’s time once again to invoke Kapriske, who at the end of his GD article sends a reminder, “We repeat: Golfers are athletes”.