Is walking in golf just as important as the swing?
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Much of golf’s social value is often attributed to the sport itself, but could the walk between shots be just as key to shaping connection and community?
It’s a cliché that golf is a ‘good walk spoiled’. It’s also an adage that couldn’t be further from the truth.
We all know about the health benefits of playing the game – there have been too many studies lauding the benefits for anyone to have missed the publicity. But how it affects the grey matter is harder to define.
What’s the social benefit of simply being together, enjoying a community, and spending a few hours playing a great sport in good company?
“It’s quite a personal response,” says Rob Drinkwater, England Golf’s Head of Volunteers and Community, when quizzed on the value of golf from a walking point of view.
“Everybody has their own experiences why playing golf means something to them. For me, it’s all about creating that space. It’s about spending time together.
“When you’re playing golf and when you’re walking out on the course, there is something about the rhythm it gives you.
“You’re walking with your playing partners, you’re playing the shots, and you’re observing what’s going on around you. You find time.”
What is the social value of golf?
Academics at Sheffield Hallam University tried to ascribe a social value to golf, considering its contribution to physical health, mental wellbeing, and individual development.
They estimated the monetary value of that in the United Kingdom in 2019 to be just over £1 billion, adding: “The principal driver of golf’s social value is improved subjective wellbeing through participation and volunteering.”
Their report, published in 2022 and titled The Social Value of Golf in the UK, noted that while the evidence base for social and community development was limited, what existed demonstrated that “golf has the potential to contribute to the development of communities and friendships, and is associated with higher levels of social trust”
.It also suggested, citing England Golf sources, that “volunteering in golf may have important social and community development outcomes and is bound with a sense of belonging and pride in the club”.
But what can sit underneath, yet is often taken for granted, is the simple act of walking itself. Golf isn’t like many other sports.
It unfolds at a pace that allows conversations to develop between shots and across holes. That doesn’t just connect one hole to another, it creates the conditions for reflection and shared experience.
“It creates that quality space and time together to connect,” adds Drinkwater. “It’s amazing the level of conversation you can have with somebody that you’ve only just met for the first time – in that safe space out on the course together and sharing that experience.”
He continues: “Golf is a cross generational sport. In quite a lot of other sports, you’re playing with people of a similar age to you, a similar background, or experience.
“One of the beautiful things about golf is because you have that ability to connect with different generations you get exposed to different people and their different thoughts and views of the world.
“For many people, that weekly round of golf is as much about the social interaction as it is getting out there and playing the game. We know that’s the case on and off the course.”
Walking a golf course isn't used exercise - it's a shared experience
Golfers in Australia, for example, described golf as an exercise more attractive than just walking on its own “as it was more engaging and less boring, providing opportunity to exercise without it feeling like exercise”.
Revealed in the Social Value of Golf in the UK report, the authors cited researchers who found that “whilst walking around the golf course, they were distracted by the playing of golf and socialising with their playing partners”.
In other words, walking wasn’t experienced as primarily exercise, but as a shared environment where it happened alongside conversations and attention to surroundings.
Another collaboration between England Golf, Mytime Active and the ukactive Research Institute, a decade ago, looked at the levels of personal wellbeing and physical activity of golfers.
When asked how satisfied they were with their life, 78% of golfers “scored 7 or higher, and 18% of golfers scored their personal wellbeing as the maximum response of 10”.
The report revealed: “The authors suggest that the wellbeing of golfers is enhanced by the fact that they play with friends and create and nurture social relations, as well as that golf is played outdoors in a natural green environment, which they suggest further promotes personal wellness”.
“Of course, not everybody can access the course in terms of being able to walk it,” says Drinkwater. “It’s 18-holes and four or five hours and several miles under the legs isn’t for everybody.
“But there is something about the natural environment. You can switch off or notice things you wouldn’t necessarily take in otherwise – whether that’s the weather, the ground, the seasons, trees, the animals. You become a little bit more self-aware of your surroundings when you walk.”
And he concludes: “We know, in terms of community, the sense of continuity that golf can bring to people’s lives and just how important that is for them – especially in those that maybe don’t have families at home or otherwise would be quite isolated. The golf club is that space that they can have a touch point with people.”
Stewart Golf
