ARCHIVED GOLFHUMOUR

I've put considerable time and wine into researching this area (the Tollana Cellar Door Reserve Barossa Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon/Viognier 2004 is particularly good at focusing the mind on golf research) and have reached an inevitable conclusion.

We need to connect playing golf to something vital, something which has a major benefit on the general population who, according to other researchers (probably tea-totallers), want to live longer and have a better quality of life in old age.

Consider the number one health worry (the obesity epidemic) which TV, radio, magazines and newspapers daily thrust at us and the conclusion is logical.

Yep, you've got it, golf clubs need to target the fatties or, in young women's cases, the skinnies who think they're fatties. (Which immediately gives you an enormous target—no pun intended.)

"That won't work," I hear you say. "They can just go to the gym or start running if they want to lose weight through exercise. Why choose golf?"

If I had a defeatist attitude like that, I'd never have reached single-figures. (That's handicap, not clothes size.) The indisputable reason why people wanting to lose weight should take up golf is because they'll lose the kilos without having to make any conscious effort.

No huffing and puffing around the streets or on a treadmill—they won't even notice how far they've walked, it'll be such ... fun!

To prove my weight-loss theory, I measured how many calories beginner golfers burnt with each attempted shot.

It turned out that every airshot used up 1.3 calories. You can add a further 0.5 of a calorie for each additional 2 cms of shaft, so don't tell them not to use a driver till their swing improves.

However, you want to get these people hooked on improving their golf, rather than hooked on hacking to lose weight. So you must tell the beginner that, as with a diet, the easy fat loss only comes in the initial stages.

Once they've lost a few kilos, the airshots won't work any more.

This is where we move on to the, aptly named, skinny shots. The great thing about hitting the ball skinny is that it makes you grind your teeth. After thinning shots for 18 holes, the teeth are ground down to bloody stumps and it's nothing but pureed food for at least a month.

But what if you hit your shots fat? (See what I mean about golf being the only sport for modern humanity? Even the terminology is weight-obsessed.)

Fat shots are ideal for losing weight because you'll use an extra 0.5 of a calorie if you take a large divot. And then there's an additional 0.5 of a calorie to fetch the divot and drop it back into place. An additional 0.75 of a calorie is used up when the golfer stamps their foot and thumps their club on to the divot, just to make damn sure it's solidly set into the ground.

After 18 holes, your novice golfer has lost an average of 126 calories.

Without even trying.

By the time the new golfer has improved their game, and their weight has inevitably stabilised, they'll be hooked on golf and never give up their membership.

And another advantage for the club with these people is that they'll make more money out of them than any of their other members.

While they've lost all those calories out on the course, they'll be so frustrated with their scores that they'll head straight for the bar and then the dining room.

This extra profit will also keep the caterers happy—something more difficult than scoring a hole in one with your trundler handle.

And we all know there's nothing worse for a golf club than unhappy caterers.