What You Should Eat During A Round Of Golf

How often do you resist your hunger urges during a round of golf by telling yourself you’ll eat when you reach the clubhouse? How often do you forego food at the halfway hut because you think eating something results in a guaranteed double-bogey the next hole? How often do you struggle to drag your legs up the 18th fairway because you’re so low on energy?

Most golfers reading this will answer ‘regularly’ to at least one of the above questions, but nutrition in golf is extremely important, and something we should all take seriously.

Some rounds of golf can burn as many as 2,000 calories. To give some perspective, that’s the recommended daily intake for women and 500 short of the daily recommended intake for men. 

If you haven’t consumed enough calories, you become tired. If you’re tired, you’re far more likely to make bad decisions and mental mistakes that could cost you the monthly medal or even the club championship.

The first thing to do is make sure you come prepared. If you don’t equip yourself with some of the best snacks to have in your golf bag, you’ll inevitably end up eating chocolate bars, which really won’t do you much good.

Before all that, though, you need to consider what to eat before playing golf. Making sure you've had a solid meal that will fuel you for what's to come is essential. As is drinking water regularly in order to avoid feeling dehydrated, which affects performance. This is also key for anyone wanting to learn how to play golf with a hangover.

After three or four holes, a good idea is to eat a cereal bar. This will provide a small boost of carbohydrate and ensure you aren’t dipping into your reserves. The more you dip into your reserves, the more your energy levels will suffer.

You don’t want to eat many carbs as the aim at this point is to stabilise levels, not increase them. Some will favour fruit and nuts, which provide a good balance of slowly digesting fibre and fat.

Around the turn, you should be looking to eat something that provides a good balance of protein, carbohydrate and fat. Something like a tuna or chicken sandwich on brown bread is ideal – chicken and tuna provide high-quality and therefore more digestible protein, and brown bread is a source of preferable carbs.

Bacon is more processed and eating white bread can result in a crash, so as tempting as it is, it’s probably best to avoid a bacon sandwich on white. Over the final six holes, you should be looking for an energy boost – this will make sure you don’t feel sluggish and help you concentrate. Bananas, dried fruit and nuts are all good options.

It's an often-overlooked aspect of performance but it can make a huge difference. So, just as you spend time and money on lessons and new equipment, invest a little into your nutrition and fuel yourself for better golf.