Spring is upon us and it’s that time of year when some of us just off the golf clubs with great anticipation for another year on the links. It’s with great interest that I decided to tackle how weight loss might lead to improvements in your life golf game and handicap. Hopefully, those New Year’s resolutions to lose weight and exercise more have come to fruition, and now it’s time to see how the hell that hard work might pay off.

As someone who loves to play and lost a significant amount of weight Rx a few years ago, I was curious to see what was known about this topic. I was hopeful that a certain amount of scientific inquiry had been undertaken, and I might have more than just the usual assumptions and strong personal experience opinions to go on. Unfortunately, as is often the case, reality generally trumps hope in the grand scheme of things.

On a positive note, it was actually a study that addressed walking on the golf course versus taking a cart as an adjunct to helping lose weight. It was nice to see that walking for 18 holes is certainly better than using your golf cart with respect to adding steps and energy use and more successful weight. Certainly, this was reassuring and potentially would attract a little bit from some of the guilt that comes with enjoying the 19th hole.

However, the topic of how losing weight affects one swing, which I was interested in, does not seem to have drawn much attention. The few papers that address the golf biomechanics issue have focused on high-end athletes and their respective swings. This was not very helpful to those weekend warriors such as myself.

So, Given the dearth of information in the scientific literature, I I was forced to explore the realm of personal experience and opinion. It seems there is some conversation on the Internet regarding the experience that a few individuals have had regarding losing weight and its impact on their golf game.
As with everything in life, it seems there are those who are looking for any particular reason not to change their life with weight loss and those who see the changes that come with losing weight in a positive light and the changes it brings in a positive way.

It’s been said that the optimal golf swing should look like a Ferris wheel and not a carousel. For those folks who have issues with obesity. The majority have gotten used to making accommodations with their golf swing for their due to their body habitus. From what I have read it seems that the transition with losing weight is really about understanding that one’s center of gravity will potentially change a lot and that the overcompensation for fades that most heavy golfers have developed to manage their swings will need to be addressed. The potential for a more upright Ferris wheel-like swing, which is easier to accommodate when one loses their girth, potentially resulted in a draw bias in many of the conversations I encountered.

The second issue that seems to dominate the conversations was the feeling that losing weight resulted in less length off the tee box. For those of us who place far too much emphasis on power and distance versus control and accuracy, it is an interesting, possibly concerning feature about weight loss. Whether, in fact, this observation by a few is the reality is uncertain from my point of you. Now, if your hero is Bryce Dechambeau., the dramatic transformation of his body with bodybuilding and weight gain might provide all the ammunition you need to avoid the problem of trying to lose weight.

Ultimately, let’s be frank. The question of losing weight is not about one’s golf game. It’s really about optimizing our bodies to live a better and healthier life. It seems to me keeping this goal in mind and making the necessary changes that come with it is what is most important. Nowadays, there are lots of different avenues that folks can take to lose weight. There is no question that this is a simple task. The old diet and exercise strategies will often generally work for the few and not the majority. Newer strategies using expensive drugs offer the promise of more successful short-term gains.

Unfortunately, these drugs are expensive. The result is the weight regain, just another very expensive diet. There are tried and true solutions to weight loss, and folks who need to lose a lot of weight can change one’s ability to eat with weight loss surgery. Yet, this is a too scary solution for many folks.

The good news is that we now have a new procedure that doesn’t involve incisions or cutting out parts of the body to lose weight. The endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty procedure has now reached primetime. It does not involve making decisions that result in minimal side effects. Patients are able to have the procedure and go back to their normal activities, no worse for the wear.

Tucson Bariatric Surgeon, Dr. Patrick Chiasson, specializes in minimally invasive Weight Loss Surgery (Endoscopic and Laparoscopic). His procedures include Endoscopic Sleeve Gastroplasty (ESG), Heartburn, and Hiatal Hernia / LINX procedures. Follow Patrick Chiasson MD on Facebook & Twitter.