GOLF’S FUTURE DEPENDS ON HOW IT FEELS.
Golf Yourself Healthy is a wellbeing-first brand exploring how golf is experienced and shaped by culture.
THE PROBLEM
Golf doesn’t have a participation problem. It has an experience problem.
Golf offers clear physical, social, and psychological benefits. Yet for many people, the lived experience of the game does not consistently reflect that promise.
Performance-led cultures, unspoken expectations, and narrow definitions of success can create pressure, exclusion, and quiet disengagement. Many people don’t leave golf because they dislike it — they drift away because they stop feeling they belong.
Golf Yourself Healthy exists to help address this gap by reshaping how golf is framed, discussed, and organised at a cultural level.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
Golf Yourself Healthy is grounded in four core convictions:
1. GOLF HAS DEFINED SUCCESS TOO NARROWLY
For too long, improvement has been judged mainly by score, status, and technical ability. When success is measured only in these terms, the experience becomes fragile — especially for the majority who will always remain “average.”
If golf is to retain people long term, it must broaden what success looks like.
2. BELONGING IS MORE POWERFUL THAN PERFORMANCE
People stay where they feel safe, valued, and accepted — not where they feel constantly evaluated.
Belonging is not a soft idea. It is a strategic one.
It shapes confidence, resilience, and whether someone chooses to remain part of the game.
3. ENJOYMENT IS NOT THE REWARD FOR GETTING BETTER
It is the starting point that makes improvement sustainable.
When enjoyment is postponed until performance improves, the relationship with the game becomes conditional. Over time, that pressure erodes confidence and increases dropout.
4. CULTURE SHAPES EXPERIENCE MORE THAN INSTRUCTION DOES
Coaching, facilities, and formats all matter.
But the everyday signals — the norms, language, expectations, and behaviours within a club or organisation — shape how the game feels.
Instruction develops skill.
Culture determines whether people stay.
IN PRACTICE
Golf Yourself Healthy operates at the level of ideas and culture. Its work takes shape in two distinct ways.
GOLF YOURSELF HAPPY
The lived, consumer-facing expression of this philosophy — supporting everyday golfers to experience the game with less pressure and greater enjoyment.
INSTITUTIONAL ENGAGEMENT
Dialogue, advisory work, and collaboration with clubs and organisations seeking to create healthier, more sustainable environments within the game.
LEARN MORE ABOUT GYH
In February 2023, Kris Lynch was faced with the sudden loss of his son, Innes. To help process his grief, Kris headed out to the golf course to find serenity and solitude. In those early days of raw emotion, one very clear and eminently positive thought emerged.
If golf could have such a profound effect during this darkest moment, then surely it must be having the same effect for others.
