The R&A reports that golf boosts your physical and mental well-being.
Golf can help to treat over 40 chronic diseases and with 18 holes, you can burn up to 2,000 calories along a five-mile walk.
The R&A also says if you play golf for at least 150 minutes per week, you meet the global exercise guidelines set by the World Health Organisation.
So why on earth do we stand for top players smoking in events that are televised across the world to thousands, if not, millions of viewers?
Charley Hull, who attracted attention for smoking at this year’s US Women’s Open at Lancaster Country Club, has revealed she can’t spark up during the Olympic Games. Good.
It isn’t rare for the Olympic Games to come under fire for its rules and regulations, with storylines in boxing and beach volleyball igniting controversy in Paris, but the policy which bans smoking in golf, as trivial as it might sound, is vitally important.
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Golf smoking issue rears its head at the Olympics
This shouldn’t read as a lecture on smoking, but rather a challenge to a sport that allows a habit, which can lead to horrific illnesses depicted on the cigarette boxes themselves, to be so widely documented to its audience while masquerading as a beacon of healthy living.
We all chuckled when Dan Brown explained how he doesn’t like smoking in front of his parents at The Open in Troon, yet doesn’t hesitate to open the little cardboard box and light up on the golf course.
“That’s just a bit of a bad habit that I’ve got into. Do you know what, I only really do it when I’m golfing, to be honest, so I suppose it could be a coping mechanism. I was trying to sneak.
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“My mum and dad are here. There’s a lot of people watching. I don’t know how people are going to take it.”
To many, the hysteria surrounding golfers with cigarettes in hand is a mountain made from a molehill. But what is the point in promoting the benefits to our health and mental well-being if we tolerate players smoking during huge events that are shown across the world?
Allowing stars to smoke on screen is to contradict an entire sport’s efforts to get people moving.
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As great as it would’ve been to see both Hull and Brown win a major, there’s every chance young aspiring golfers would’ve sat and thought, ‘I’ll start smoking on the course too’.
This could be translated to: ‘I’ll start breathing grim smoke into my lungs and possibly give myself a disease too’.
With each piece of dirty ash and soot sprinkled on the grounds of Troon and Lancaster grew a larger stain on golf’s genuine prospects of promoting health benefits.
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