When I watched the Golf Club Atlas interviews with Don Mahaffey last year, I was struck by the comments Don made about the health benefits of golf. Watch them here, starting at the 14:50 mark:

Don mentions things that are known to be good for health -- walking, spending time with other people, spending time in nature, solving puzzles.

That, he says, describes playing 9 holes of golf, but "no one is talking about that sort of thing, about the health benefits of golf ... I've never heard it packaged like that, anywhere, and I think there's opportunity there to change the image of pesticide, chemical, too much water and all of these things that we get branded with. And we talk about sustainability and we're using too much water and all of these things, but golf is good for you."

He's right, and after hearing his comments, I've been more attentive to articles on this subject. Here's a list I've enjoyed reading:

• From the NY Times, How walking in nature changes the brain
• From Landscape and Urban Planning, The benefits of nature experience: Improved affect and cognition
• From PNAS, Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefontal cortex activation
• From Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, Golf: a game of life and death -- reduced mortality in Swedish golf players
• From STERF, Societal benefits of golf -- Inspiration and ideas for local partnership