Calories burned during golf

The short answer

Half an hour of golf burns roughly 140–190 kcal for a 70 kg person when you walk the course and carry or push your clubs — a range, because a buggy cuts it sharply and hilly courses add to it. Most of the cost is the walking, not the swing. Enter your weight and time below.

Your range

Enter your weight and how long you moved — the estimate comes back as a range, the same way our diary does it.

kg
min
Calories burned during golf, by weight and time
Weight 15 min30 min45 min60 min
50 kg 50–68100–136151–204201–272
60 kg 60–82120–163181–245241–326
70 kg 70–95141–190211–285281–380
80 kg 80–109161–217241–326321–435
90 kg 90–122181–245271–367361–489
100 kg 100–136201–272301–408402–543
110 kg 110–149221–299331–448442–598

Each cell is a range (±15%). Read down for your weight, across for your time. These are population estimates, not a measurement of you.

Energy cost from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities (Herrmann, Willis, Ainsworth et al.). kcal = MET × 3.5 × weight(kg) ÷ 200 × minutes; we show it as a band because a MET is a population average. Why a range, not one number →

Common questions
How many calories does golf burn?

It depends on your weight, how long you keep it up and — a lot — your pace and fitness, so there is no single true number. The table and the calculator give a range for your weight and time. Two people of the same weight can differ by 15–25% at the same activity.

Why show a range instead of one number?

Because a MET value is a population average. Your real burn shifts with fitness, technique, terrain and how hard you actually went. A single "347 kcal" reads as precise when it isn't — the honest answer is a band, and that is what we show.

Do calories burned mean I can eat that much back?

No. This is an estimate of energy spent, not calories you have to "earn" or a licence to eat more. Movement is worth doing for its own sake. If you track a day's balance, use the range — never treat the top of it as exact.

Where do the numbers come from?

MET values from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, a public reference cited by researchers. We apply the standard MET formula and widen it into a ±15% band (±25% for strength work, which a MET barely captures).

More activities
Put this in context