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"Golf… a young man’s vice and an old man’s penance." |
-Irvin S. Cobb |
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It's easy to look at a PGA Tour player and think it's a glamorous life. Playing golf day in and day out on pristine courses hardly seems like work. Most people laugh at the idea that playing golf for a living is physically taxing, but Tiger Woods has raised the health and fitness bar through the roof and forced anyone who wants to keep up to get in shape. While every player's health and fitness program varies due to dietary preferences and anatomical differences, we've found some basic programs that have proven beneficial to our players who play the game for a living. Most of our tour professionals play three consecutive weeks, then take a couple weeks off before returning to play three more weeks. Professional golf is a seven-day work week. Travel begins on Sunday night or early Monday at the latest. Sitting on a plane in a prone position and breathing bad air for hours isn't always healthy. Because of that, we tell players to drink lots of water to keep potential impurities moving quickly through their systems. Water also keeps the body cool, helps control adrenaline and keeps muscles and joints supple and lubricated. It's the perfect substitute for caffeinated, sugary drinks that can cause the body to crash during competition. As far as diet is concerned, we recommend three small, healthy meals a day with light snacks in between. A good breakfast is egg whites, yogurt and fruit, while lunch could be a tuna sandwich on whole grain bread with more fruit and a small salad. In between snacks should be raw fruits, vegetables and healthy nuts, such as almonds. A good dinner is fish, steamed vegetables and another salad. We advocate eating dinner earlier rather than later to allow the body time to digest the meal before shutting it down for the evening. When it comes to fitness, we like our players to build muscle and add strength in the off-season and maintain what they've built during the season. On a tournament week, the fitness regimen should start with a long, slow stretch and a slow cardio workout. This allows the body to loosen up and unwind. If a player has access to a massage, steam or Jacuzzi, we encourage that. The next day is a practice day so we start with a light stretch and a bit of cardio on a stationary bike, stair climber or elliptical trainer. We like players to vary their routines and always do more warming up before playing 18 holes. The afternoon should consist of practice followed by core training and light weight lifting. We advocate light weights with more repetitions. We're looking at maintaining strength and flexibility during the season rather than building muscle mass. When you play the game for a living, you want to know that the 7-iron is going to go 170 yards this week, next week and the week after that. Keeping your strength quotient at an even level is vital to the kind of consistency needed to be great. When we transition to an off-week we encourage players to disconnect for a couple days. Laying low for a few days allows them time to recharge before we gear up all over again. If you look at Woods 10 years ago, he was a skinny kid. Today, he's a physical specimen, but it didn't happen overnight. It has been a perfectly planned blending of building for mass and maximum flexibility combined with diet that has allowed him to develop to where he is today. He has built his body to a level where his maintenance plan during the season probably equates to another player's off-season building program. A tour professional's lifestyle is one of sacrifice and dedication. It's a lifestyle that could benefit anyone, but it's the commitment to the program that allows these players to maximize their talents and play the best golf possible. SG Jamie Mulligan is a PGA professional and the chief operations officer at Virginia Country Club. |
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