Core strength and balance are crucial to playing the best womens golf. Flexibility also plays an important role.

D. Rutti - Some people question whether golf is actually a sport. They think it's just a game, something similar to chess, I guess. They certainly don't think golf is played by athletes or by anyone else who needs to be physically fit.

Those people are wrong. It's obvious they've never played golf. Anyone who has ever spent time with this great sport knows just how physically demanding golf can be. It's definitely important to be physically fit when you want to play golf as well as you can.

Getting fit for golf may be even more important for women's golf than it is for mens golf, but golf fitness for women probably gets far less attention. Women often lead more sedentary lives than men. After all, many of us work in offices, sitting behind desks all day. Some men, such as construction workers and auto mechanics, have jobs that require and build up their physical fitness. That gives those men an automatic advantage on the golf course. Most women don't have that advantage, so they need to work a little harder on their golf fitness. But that's not the only reason we need to work harder to succeed at the game of golf.

Many women lack the type of upper body strength that so many men almost seem like they were born with. But as much as we would like to have strong upper bodies, strong and stable legs are even more important for a woman golfer. It's obvious that walking up and down all those hills requires strong legs, but so do long drives. Not many people realize that the length of a golfer's drives comes directly from leg strength and balance.

Core strength and balance are crucial to playing the best womens golf. Flexibility also plays an important role. After all, if you're not flexible enough to keep your arms straight while swinging them around your body, you won't be able to swing a club properly. Your backswing will be too short and you won't be able to follow through the way you would like. Flexibility is essential to building a repeatable and effective golf swing.

It's no coincidence that strength, stability, and balance are the three keys to golf fitness, in addition to being the three keys to successful golf. They are every bit as important to women's golf as they are for men. It's just that these key characteristics can be harder for women to achieve because women have a built-in disadvantage. Women have far fewer muscle fibers than men. In other words, women are built differently than men. Their muscles are weaker, so women have to work harder to achieve golf fitness. But we can do it!

Women can step up their golf fitness using a variety of exercises and workouts, include stretching and other flexibility training, cardio training, strength training, core strengthening and specific techniques that improve your overall balance. All will increase your golf fitness if you are diligent. You can exercise in private at home, or if you like you can join a gym or a health club. Either way, you'll gain a competitive advantage and add to the enjoyment you get from playing this great sport of golf.

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