John Daly Warns 'Hardcore' Working Out Is Going To Hurt Golfers In The Long Run

John Daly is not the face of fitness in golf or overall health in general, and he'd be the first to tell you that, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a strong opinion about the fitness boom in the golf space over the last couple of decades. 

While Gary Player was the first legend of the game to start spending a lot of his time in the gym, Tiger Woods is credited for bringing strength training into the equation for golfers. From his prime up until now at almost 50 years old, Woods is built more like a ‘real’ professional athlete, more so than a typical golfer.

Woods has also picked up his fair share of injuries over the years and has been forced to go under the knife more than a handful of times, most notably on his back and knee. 

Woods is obviously an outlier example in all of this, given that he's arguably the greatest to ever do it, but for Daly, it's the hardcore working out that Woods and plenty of other players are doing that may hinder them later in life.

"I think the hardcore working out is going to hurt these guys, and they won’t be playing when they’re 55, 60 years old," Daly recently explained on the ‘Like A Farmer’ podcast. 

"I think a lot of guys lose their flexibility and so many guys are mechanical, too, they don’t have a lot," he continued. "That means their body’s not equipped to taking the club back as far as I can or not fortunate to be as flexible as I can, but they work strenous on the game and getting their their swing into exactly the way they want it, but I think working out hurts a lot of these guys, I really do."

John Daly thinks the hardcore training in the gym some golfers are taking part in could hurt them in the long run. Getty Images

It goes without saying that everyone is different, and everyone's body reacts differently to certain movements in and out of the gym. Some players need to put in serious work in the gym to continue to compete on the PGA Tour, especially with everyone chasing swing and ball speed. Meanwhile, some guys are just naturally gifted, and Daly would certainly fall into that category.

As for how Daly ‘worked out’ back in the day, it simply required a wedge and a putter.

"Mine was just practice wedges and chip and putt all day long," Daly explained. "I could do that all day long; that’s all I did. You know, people say I don’t practice a lot, but they don’t know. When I get to a tournament, if you’re not ready, you shouldn’t have to practice as much — you should just kind of go just get warmed up basically, and a lot of times, I won’t even hit a ball; I’ll just go to the putting green, hit a few chips and go. But that’s my mentality."