by Anne Foy

        There are many advantages to living in a golf community, and one of them is how much younger and full of energy you can feel when playing the sport. Most people think of running, going to the gym or cycling as a means of keeping fit, but golf also provides health benefits with less impact, making it an ideal form of exercise for the older person. It is gentle on the body and the chance of an injury is rare.

Walk Four Miles and Enjoy It

A Harvard Medical School study indicates that if a person walks a golf course for just one game, they will have walked as much as four miles or more. Walking 18 holes up to five times a week will give the heart an optimal amount of exercise and could help prevent heart disease. (If you can't make it to the golf course that many times, try to supplement with a cardio-healthy walk on a treadmill or around a local track.)
Fox Den Country Club, near Knoxville, TN

Have Fun, Lose Weight

If a player carries his or her golf clubs or pulls them on a hand cart, this will give his heart an extra endurance test and should help him keep fit and lose weight, a better way to reduce BMI (Body Mass Index) than fad diets that typically do not work. Losing weight can relieve pressure on the joints, making that walk around the golf course even easier; reduce the chance of arthritis; and cut the risk of diabetes. The exercise aspect of a round of golf can also improve respiratory and vascular functions.

Forever Young (Looking)

Golf can help improve muscle tone and help players keep a better, more attractive shape. They might even have others thinking they look younger than they are. Improved muscle tone also means enhanced balance that, in turn, will reduce the chance of falls. Falls are the number one reason for visits to the Emergency Room by people aged 65 and over. And as anyone who plays golf regularly knows, balance is an integral part of the successful golf swing.

Glucosamine, without the Pills

The physical exercise of playing golf triggers the production of endorphins, the body’s natural pain reliever that is impressively 30 times stronger than morphine. (This will help ward off aches and pains and give a sense of wellbeing that protects against stress. Exercise also is fundamental to the production of glucosamine, a substance that is involved in lubricating the joints so that they glide smoothly. More glucosamine means more agility and less risk of arthritis when older.

You’ll Never Walk Alone…Unless You Want to

Getting involved in golf for the first time brings with it a new community and group of friends to expand a person’s social circle. Golf is a universally popular sport, played by more than 50 million people in 206 countries; therefore, there are always lots of different people to meet. A good social circle promotes good emotional health, and that can even increase life span.   The University of North Carolina reviewed 148 studies of health outcomes and social relationships and found that people with few social connections had a 50% higher chance of dying during the study follow-up period of seven years, compared with people who had the most friendships. The difference was so extreme that some researchers have declared social isolation to be as damaging to health as cigarette smoking or other harmful addictions.  Due to this and the physical and mental benefits of golf, including the possibility of longer lives, doctors are encouraging more people to take up golf.
Cliffs at Keowee Vineyards, Sunset, SC

Off the Table and Onto the Course

Six million of the golfers in America are over the age of 50 and, with age comes health concerns. One of the most common ones is osteoarthritis, or ‘wear and tear’ arthritis of the joints. As the protective cushions between the joints wear out, bone can scrape on bone, causing pain and stiffness and reducing range of movement. Joint replacements are typically done in advanced cases.  Of course, those golfers who must have a joint replacement always wonder how quickly they can resume playing the game, if at all. The good news is that golf is still good for people post-operatively. In a survey of the Hip Society, no surgeons prohibited their patients from playing golf and none reported any complications from resuming the game. Seven in 10 surgeons advised precautions such as using a cart while playing and waiting at least four months after surgery to resume golf, but with the proper guidelines more than 90% could enjoy the sport without any discomfort and still continue to enjoy all the recognized health benefits.

        Anne Foy is a freelance writer and mother. She turned to writing as a more flexible career that complements parenthood.  In her spare time she likes to follow sports and go for walks with her three standard poodles.

        I spent a very pleasant five days at a friend’s huge rented home on the beach at Kill Devil Hills, NC, on the Outer Banks, known locally to all as the OBX. (All residents’ license plates appear to begin with the letters OBX.) Kill Devil Hills is famous as the launching pad for the Wright Brothers’ first flight. I visited the Memorial to the events of December 17, 1903, just a mile from where we were staying, and it was a brief but impressive look at the dawn of aviation. Stone markers denote the distances of the flights on that fateful December day in 1903, a few dozen feet for the first three and then one giant glide for mankind on the fourth attempt, just over 850 feet in 59 seconds. A large granite monument atop the highest hill on the Outer Banks looks down on what was once a sandy runway and is now totally grassed over.
On December 17, 1903, the Wright Brothers flew a plane for nearly one minute at a distance of 852 feet, in the field below. It was a field of sand at the time.
        The OBX attracts vacationers for much more than its history. The beaches stretch many miles along the Atlantic, and Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk, Nags Head, Duck and the other towns that dot the banks exhibit all the perquisites of beach resorts, such as many seafood restaurants and other entertainment venues. (My most notable culinary find of the week was at Duck Donuts, a local chain that makes hot donuts all day long and dips them in whatever sugar component you’d like; the maple bacon donuts were terrific). During the rest of the day, the main attraction is the beach. The children in the Carolinas had just returned to school before our week and not every home seemed to be rented at ocean side and traffic was quite manageable, unlike just a week earlier.
The shorter the par 4 at Kilmarlic, the more trouble surrounds the hole. (#3 shown here)
        The Outer Banks is not especially noted for its golf courses, although it is certainly not lacking. Seascape, a course I played for the first and only time in 1971, once sported unimpeded views to the ocean from its perch up on the dunes, but today homes impede those views and the course conditions are less than optimal. The Currituck Club, surrounded by single-family homes and condos, offers some nice views of the Atlantic and a few good holes, but some complain about the price of green fees outstripping the quality of the experience. I and a few of my housemates for the week played at Kilmarlic Golf Club, a course just 20 minutes from Kill Devil Hills; it was in splendid condition except for the pockmarks on the greens that are the bane of resort-area courses. (Interloper players, with no vested interest in the future of the golf course, tend not to make the honorable effort to repair their pitch marks.) Kilmarlic, which I first visited nearly seven years ago (see review here), has seen some significant growth in the number of homes at its perimeter, none of which encroach on the layout. The course, which plays host to a major collegiate golf event every year, was designed by Tom Steele, not a noted architect but one who put together a noteworthy routing that is both fair to the average golfer but with enough in the way of challenges -– elevated greens, marshland surrounds, well-placed bunkers that hide the bottoms of pins -– to give pause to the single-digit handicap player.
Kilmarlic may be a few miles from the beach, but there is plenty of water on the course, some in play, some ornamental.
        Just four miles over the bridge to Kitty Hawk, Kilmarlic and the town of Powell’s Point are well located away from the summer traffic yet within 10 to 15 minutes of the beaches. Although the community of Kilmarlic was developed separately from the golf course, it offers most of the amenities of any larger sized golf community. (The Kilmarlic neighborhood is 650 acres in size.) Homes start in the $400s, fairly priced especially for those looking for a year round vacation spot separated by a few miles from outstanding beaches.