"Working out hurts": John Daly shares bold take on the physical training of today's golfers

In John Daly's eyes, golfers don't necessarily need to be doing extreme workouts off the golf course to stay in the best physical shape possible. In fact, the long-time golf star believes that may be disadvantageous for players.

The 65-year-old golfer said that "working out hardcore" is only going to hurt modern golfers in the long run, and that they won't be able to play "when they’re 55, 60 years old.”

Via Golf.com, the former PGA Tour star said:

“I think working out. I think a lot of guys lose their flexibility and so many guys are mechanical, too, they don’t have a lot. 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.”

Daly understands that too much off-course work can hurt, and that's something today's golfers should hear from their personal trainers. Overdoing it is never good, and sometimes, what works well for one player could be terrible for another.

That said, good exercise off the golf course has been linked to improved distance, flexibility, safety and stamina in professional golf. Daly, who is playing much longer than most players do, would disagree with some of that, though.

---

John Daly reveals how he used to work off the course

The best way to get better at golf is to play in John Daly's eyes. So even when he wasn't in a tournament, he wouldn't prioritize getting in the gym over getting some swings in.

John Daly shared his old practice regimen (Image via Imagn)

To Golf.com, he revealed what his typical practice day used to look like. The two-time Major winner said:

“Mine was just practice wedges and chip and putt all day long. 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."

He said that was how a lot of golfers felt until Tiger Woods arrived on the scene. When Woods and his extreme fitness regimen came into pro golf, things began to change. Ultimately, John Daly felt it was too late for him to try and emulate that, so he just kept on operating as he was beforehand.