Cigars: A Danger to Your Golf Game

Even thought the number of golfers who smoke cigars is down, there are still enough of them to affect your game.

Yes, you can guess the bottomline: Smoking is bad for you. So what else is New? Nothing other than the fact that if you are a golfer, smoking affects your game.

The feeling a cigar smoker has the next day is awful. The dry mouth, not to mention the bad breath and body odor should be enough to tell you what smoking is doing to your health and relationships. After just a few weeks your skin starts to turn orange and your throat becomes so swollen you have a hard time swallowing. From here I think the American Cancer Society can better describe the decline in a smoker’s health.

As far as the effects cigar smoking has on your golf game!? Your endurance is voided. Playing 18 holes without a significant rise in blood pressure is impossible. The strain that smoking puts on the heart that is fight off the toxins from the smoke and trying to energize the muscles used to swing the golf club is incredible. And over time the smaller muscles start to shake and will not relax. Not good for a golf swing or putting. How enjoyable can the game be if your body is not allowing you to play golf without strain and stress?

How about the non-smoker golfers who are playing with the cigar smoker? They don’t fare much better. Secondhand smoke is just as dangerous as being the smoker.

What brought this up for me to be so concern? Well, I am concerned with the golfers I know who love the game as much as I do who will not be round much longer to play it with me because of their attitude towards cigar smoking.

Something they say to me, ‘Oh, Duke, get off it. I smoke these things because they relax me. You know, you use to smoke them’ is the comment I have heard more times than I want to remember. Yes, I smoked cigarettes, cigars and a pipe for 15 years and I quit smoking in 1976 and I have not regretted a day since. And I thank goodness for my health today. And, if I can do it, anyone can do it.

Please, if you are one of the few golfers left smoking cigars on the golf course, in the 19^th holes and in the card rooms, think of the others you effect when you light one of those turds up. Quit while the quitting is easier. You will like yourself better and the golfers who play with you will like you ever more.

Come on, take out of your mouth what looks like something that came out of your butt, and join the rest of us who want to play golf a lot longer.

Scot Duke

President & Business Golf Mentor

Innovative Business Golf Solutions, LLC.

scot.duke@innovativebusinessgolf.com

www.innovativebusinessgolf.com

‘My Blog’ http://businessgolf.wordpress.com

Author of: ‘How To Play Business Golf’, From The Boardroom To The Fairways…

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