Wearable-Derived Sleep and Physiological Metrics Are Associated With Performance in Professional Golfers

Area of Science:

• Sports Science
• Physiology
• Human Performance

Background:

• Elite golf performance demands peak physiological and psychological states.
• Sleep and cardiac autonomic function (RHR, HRV) are key recovery indicators but understudied in golf.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between sleep, cardiac autonomic function, and objective golf performance.
• To analyze how individual differences and within-athlete changes in these metrics impact performance.

Main Methods:

• Wearable data from 389 professional golfers (35,140 nights) analyzed for sleep (duration, consistency), RHR, and HRV.
• Objective performance metrics (score, shots, strokes gained) correlated with physiological data.
• Statistical models adjusted for age, height, and weight to assess performance associations.

Main Results:

• Longer, more consistent sleep, lower RHR, and higher HRV were linked to better golf scores.
• Each additional hour of sleep and increased sleep consistency significantly lowered scores.
• Within-athlete improvements in HRV and recovery scores also correlated with better performance.

Conclusions:

• Sleep quality and cardiac autonomic function are significantly associated with elite golf performance.
• Both between-athlete differences and within-athlete improvements in sleep and HRV predict better play.
• Optimizing sleep and monitoring RHR/HRV may enhance professional golfers' performance.