**1. Introduction**

Golf participation has exploded in the past 2 decades. In the early part of the century, it was calculated that Golf is played by over 55 million people throughout the world. In 2018 there were 38,864 golf courses in 290 of the world's 449 countries [1]. Golf has a particular traditional home in Great Britain and Ireland with 494 courses populating the island of Ireland. The majority of golfers reside in America, where over 23.4 million golfers were recorded in the USA in 2018. This had risen to 34.2 million by January 2021, with 9 million participating in golf at ranges and using indoor simulators. There are approximately one million individuals playing golf twice a week in England and have done so for the past five years [1, 6].

The Golf Industry is an \$84 billion economic engine that drives nearly 2 million jobs in the USA producing a total economic output in California alone of \$15.1bn in 2019.

Golf is both a recreational pastime and a competitive sporting pursuit. Golf started to thrive as a spectator sport in the 1920's and boomed in earnest in the 1960's with the arrival of live golf on TV. Its charm and allure might be the lack of age and gender barriers. Fundamentally, it is a game of skill and guile requiring some athletic ability.

The rise in popularity of golf is multifactorial. Golf as a sport has a dedicated viewing population unlike many sports and many non-golfers happily enjoy the trials and travails of professional golfers which appear on TV channels on a weekly basis. In many ways a 4 day professional sporting event is like a drama or soap opera with villains and heroes in equal measure performing on perfectly manicured fairways. Golf is peculiar in spawning a dedicated TV channel, The Golf Channel, watched by millions of viewers on a weekly basis. The recent pandemic delayed Masters played in Augusta, Georgia, USA in the Autumn of 2020 which had a viewership of over 15 million. The exercise associated with golf is of great health benefit [2] providing the perfect physiological work out to sustain health and longevity [3].

Golf too may be considered the perfect exercise for improving health and longevity. Recent recommendations have suggested that the perfect exercise would involve aerobic activity intermingled with resistance activity and anaerobic activity [3]. It is reported that this exercise prescription positively affects all cause and specific cause mortality in American adults. It appears that carrying or pushing golf clubs around an 18-hole course provides an almost perfect exercise prescription [2]. The association of golf participation and improved physical health and mental wellbeing and the contribution to increased life expectancy has prompted a number of experts to recommend policy makers encourage golf as a beneficial pastime [4].

The worldwide reach of golf and its ability to transcend barriers of age, race and gender and its general appeal has seen the reintroduction of golf to the 2016 Olympic Games.

In parallel with increased participation, injury rates among golfers have also increased. Research has suggested that almost 7 in 10 amateurs and 9 in 10 professionals will suffer a golf-related injury at least once in a lifetime of golf participation [5].
