3 Most Common Golf Injuries & How to Treat Them
Posted April 1, 2024
Since 1934, the first full week in April has been known as the Masters Tournament week. For four days, golfers worldwide meet in Augusta, Georgia, to compete for the coveted Green Jackets. While we see the golfers perform at the top of their game, we often don’t see all the preparatory work that happens beforehand, including injury prevention and recovery. A recent study shows that 31% of professional golfers and between 15.8% and 40.9% of amateur golfers incur annual injuries.
Injuries don’t discriminate based on whether you’re an amateur or professional golfer, but a physical therapist (PT) can help you get back out on the green. So, keep reading to learn more from Titleist Performance Institute Certified PT Luke Deckard, PT, DPT, CSOMT, as he discusses the three most common golf injuries and how a physical therapist can help.
Common Golf Injuries
Low Back Pain
Low back pain is the most common injury golfers experience. According to the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI), 28.1% of all golfers deal with lower back pain after every round of golf played.
Causes: Low back pain is generally caused by extension and rotation limitations in the thoracic spine (the middle section of your spine) and hip rotation deficits. The top injury-inducing swings are the reverse spine angle, s-posture, and early extension.
- Reverse Spine Angle Swing: excessively leaning your trunk toward the target during the backswing.
- S-Posture Swing: arching your lower back by sticking your tailbone out too much in the set-up position.
- Early Extension Swing: thrusting the lower body toward the golf ball during the downswing.
Risk Factors: High predictors of lower back pain are a body mass index (BMI) less than 25.7kg/m2 (tall, slender golfers), poor endurance on a side-plank hold test with the trail side (right side plank in a right-handed golfer), being less than 12.5 seconds worse than the lead side, and poor lead hip internal rotation.
How a PT Can Help: A physical therapist (PT) can help by taking you through a golf-specific movement screen to see where your deficits may be. Then, the PT will address those deficits through a combination of manual therapy techniques, dry needling, and exercises. We will then collaborate with your swing instructor to help adjust the swing itself with your newfound mobility.
Elbow Pain
You may be familiar with tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis), but did you know there is also golfer’s elbow (medial epicondylitis)? Tennis elbow refers to pain on the outside of the elbow, whereas golfer’s elbow means pain on the inside. Elbow injuries account for 6.45% of injuries in amateur golfers, according to TPI.
Causes: Poor use of the lower body, chicken-winging, coming over the top, and casting during swings.
- Casting: an early release of the golf club during the downswing.
Risk Factors: Hitting off hard surfaces like the driving range mat, taking fat divots, and a sudden increase in practice volume.
How a PT Can Help: Physical Therapists will create a tailored treatment plan, including education, manual therapy and exercises. PTs recommend limiting the practice time of hitting full shots when working off a mat, like at the driving range. They will also encourage patients to include driver swings when practicing to break up the stress to the elbow; the impact stress to the elbow from a driver is less since a divot is not being taken. Additionally, a PT may use Manual Therapy techniques like dry needling to the medial or lateral epicondyle to help with pain modulation. Finally, a PT will utilize eccentric exercises targeting wrist flexion/extension and pronation/supination to re-load the tendon under more appropriate loads.
Knee Pain
According to TPI, knee injuries account for 17.03% of total golfing injuries. When a golfer pivots during their swing, they’re putting an excessive amount of body weight on the knee.
Causes: Sliding, forcefully straightening the lead leg, and forcing the right knee valgus (“knocked knees”) on the backswing are the most common injury-inducing swing mechanics.
Risk Factors: Poor hip, knee, and ankle mobility and lack of hip stability.
- Hip: internal rotation in both the lead and trail leg.
- Knee: lack of internal rotation at the tibia leads to higher injury risks.
- Ankle: Inversion (turning in) and eversion (turning out) of the ankle to decrease strain on the knee.
How a PT Can Help: A PT could address deficits in mobility at each of the joints mentioned above through the mobilizations or with muscle-energy techniques followed by mobility exercises. Stability exercises for the hip external rotators and abductors could also help decrease one’s sway or slide. The PT may also discuss with the patient’s swing instructor about possible adjustments to their set-up posture, such as flaring out the feet to decrease stress on the knee during the backswing and downswing.
If any of these common injuries sound like something you’re currently dealing with, schedule an appointment with your physical therapist so they can create a tailored treatment plan to help you get back to the sport you love.
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