Does an elevated heart rate impact golf performance? Our test points to the complicated answer
Welcome to MythBusters, a Golf Digest+ series where we explore answers to some of golf’s most common questions through a series of tests with golfers and robots. Sometimes definitive, other times less so, our findings aim to shed new light on topics that have consumed golfers for years.
An increased heart rate is a normal physiological response to both physical demands and anxiety, but how does it affect performance? Standing on the 18th tee with a two-shot lead in the final round of the 2026 Masters, McIlroy was under both types of stress.
His Whoop statistics prove it. McIlroy had walked 20,000 steps around Augusta National while battling nerves trying to go back-to-back at the Masters. Unsurprisingly, his heart rate was an elevated 135 beats per minute on the 18th tee—up from his resting rate of 47-49 bpm.
Even if we’re not competing at Augusta National, we also experience a racing heart, whether from a tight weekend match for a few bucks or a strenuous walk around a tough course. Does an elevated heart rate have any effect on our performance?
We tested it, but our results below reveal an important distinction between different "types" of elevated heart rates. While we tested the effects of a raised heart rate caused by physical exertion, we did not simulate how anxiety or nerves might affect performance. This distinction is critical, and more testing is required to better understand how mental stress impacts your play.
Our test
To better understand the effects that heart rate alone has on performance, Golf Digest staffers Drew Powell (+1 handicap) and Sam Weinman (11 handicap) hit a series of drives and 60-yard wedge shots. With driving a skill that emphasizes speed and wedge play a test of finesse and fine motor skills, we tested these two shots to see how heart rate plays into each.
We each hit 20 drives while near our resting heart rate and 20 drives while in our elevated Zone 2 heart rates (roughly 135-150 beats per minute), as measured by our Whoop devices. We used exercises like jumping jacks, jumping rope and burpees to elevate our heart rate, and alternated between hitting shots at our resting and elevated rates. We followed the same method with 60-yard wedge shots, with all shot data measured with a Trackman.
What we found
Taking both Powell’s and Weinman’s data together, we saw mixed—and mostly insignificant—results. Weinman swung the drive fractionally faster with a higher heart rate (91.1 mph vs. 90.2), but he lost seven yards—likely due to more inconsistent contact.
Powell’s clubhead speed with driver was nearly identical between the two heart rates, and he lost four yards of distance with a higher heart rate. Both players dispersion was about the same between the heart rates.
The same trend of similar results continued with the 60-yard wedge shot. Both players averaged about three feet closer with the higher heart rate, though Weinman was more consistent with a lower heart rate and had a few bigger misses with an elevated heart rate.
What it means
At first glance, these mixed and insignificant results struggle to tell a compelling story, but two leading experts say there’s more here than you might think. It turns out, not all elevated heart rates are created equal. Our test measured our performance with an increased heart rate due to exercise, but psychiatrist Dr. David Clements says this contrasts with an anxiety-induced elevated heart rate, like the kind that players might experience at the Masters or any other major championship.
Both activate the sympathetic nervous system—the “fight-or-flight” response—but in different ways. This sympathetic activation is often thought to impede fine motor skills (like those needed in controlling the clubface or distance control), but Clements says that doesn’t always hold true. When you get your heart rate up from exercise, for example, “there’s a bunch of feedback loops that are coming from the muscle activation” which push back against the sympathetic activation and can help activate the parasympathetic system to slow heart rate and relax the body.
“This is contrasted to sympathetic activation through anxiety,” says Clements, who works on the mental game with collegiate and professional golfers. Since activation from anxiety is coming from inside the brain—rather than muscle activation—those feedback loops don’t occur and the sympathetic nervous system can run longer and more intensely, which can impede fine motor skills.
Sports psychologist Dr. Bhrett McCabe, who works with a number of PGA Tour players, agrees: an increased heart rate alone, like we tested, often doesn’t influence performance. “There was nothing at risk,” he says of our test. “You never created the consequences, which never brought in the anxiety.”
“In the absence of a consequence, an increased heart rate is just an increased heart rate,” McCabe continues, “but when we put ourselves in a competitive environment, there's a consequence, and the consequence creates pressure.”
This science was proven through one of Clements clients, who noticed that he had an elevated heart rate during the entirety of every competitive round, not necessarily from anxiety. “What we found was that the activation of his sympathetic system had no impact on his performance,” Clements says. “In fact, trying to minimize it was becoming an excessive drain on energy and his psychological state and ended up causing worse scores.”
What it doesn’t mean
Clements and McCabe are quick to point out that an increased heart rate due to anxiety is not a bad thing. It’s a natural physiological response, and what’s far more important is how a player reacts to this state. McCabe says players have two options when they feel a racing heart due to anxiety: try to protect or jump into action. The healthiest way to deal with this activated state is to accept the feeling and channel the energy toward action, like a greater focus and intentional pre-shot routine.
Takeaways
- An increased heart rate from exercise had minimal impact on driving and wedge performance.
- An increased heart rate from anxiety, pressure and consequence activates the sympathetic nervous system in a way that can have more substantial effects on performance, mental health experts say.