Pain shouldn’t be par for the course

Last year, after Marty Storch, 43, failed to warm up before a round at CrossWinds Golf Course in Bowling Green, Ky., he tore a muscle in his rib area and ended up having to quit golf for six to eight weeks.

Golf injuries range from shoulder and lower back pain to elbow and knee problems, said Dr. Frank B. Kelly, an orthopedic surgeon in Macon, Ga., who chairs the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ communications cabinet.

Some golf injuries are flukes, but golfers can reduce their chances of getting hurt by taking precautions, such as warming up, increasing flexibility, listening to their body and strengthening their core muscles. Pain is a red flag that should not be ignored, especially when you’re middle-aged or older, said Troy Grubb of the Kentucky Orthopedic Rehab Team (KORT), which screens golfers in the Louisville, Ky., area and at other locations for free.

“If a person can thoroughly warm up before they play a round of golf, that will do a great deal toward limiting their injuries,” said Dr. Johnny Benjamin, chief of orthopedic surgery at Indian River Medical Center in Vero Beach, Fla.

An ounce of prevention

Injuries can happen to anyone - from young novices to veteran golfers - so it’s worth it “to take a few extra steps” to prevent them, Kelly said.

It’s “so much easier sometimes than actually treating the injury itself and takes less time away from the golf course,” he said. “If you go out and start playing more frequently without making the proper preparations, sooner or later it will catch up with you.”

Sometimes golf attracts people who are “a little bit more out of shape simply because you can ride a golf cart around,” said Gary Costelle, director of rehabilitation services and sports medicine at Baptist Hospital Northeast in La Grange, Ky. “I think the more out of shape we are to start with, the more susceptible we are to injuries.”

Costelle recommends setting aside up to 20 minutes for warming up and stretching, noting that five or 10 minutes can easily dwindle to one or two minutes as players talk with buddies or encounter other distractions.

Grubb, an athletic trainer and physical therapist, thinks even more important than stretching is “to physically warm up - that is literally getting your body core temperature up” by doing something like walking briskly for five to 10 minutes or hitting a bucket of balls. “You can warm up, then stretch,” he said.

Taking time to exercise on a regular basis is smart, too, Costelle said. He recommends doing yoga, Pilates, weightlifting or even working out with an exercise ball, whether it’s at the gym or at home.

“I think it is very beneficial to get involved in some type of a core program,” he said. Exercise balls are wonderful ways, with the appropriate exercises, to help your core strengthening at home, and any type of upper body strengthening “is a wonderful thing.”

It’s important that exercise be tailored to the person, though, Grubb said. “You want to make sure that you’re not creating another problem by inappropriately exercising,” he said. “Nothing beats having some medical professional evaluate you and determine probably what’s best for your goals.”

Vulnerable spots

On the green, there are a number of reasons why people get hurt.

Back pain is a major issue for golfers because of the “twisting and the torquing effect” that occurs when swinging a golf club, Costelle said.

Also, the bending that’s involved - from placing the tee in the ground to taking the ball out of the cup and being hunched over to putt - puts strain on the back, he said.

Shoulder injuries are another problem and occur partly because the muscles responsible for stabilizing the shoulder joint tend to diminish after age 40 without proper conditioning, Grubb said.

“When an enormous demand like swinging a club is placed upon the shoulder,” he said, “that can start to be too much for the muscles and tendons of the rotator cuff to tolerate, and then they may break down a little bit, and you start having tendinitis, or in worse cases, you may actually tear the rotator cuff.”

It’s also wise not to get overzealous with your swing.

“We all know there’s only one Tiger Woods out there, but we all want to swing like him,” Benjamin said. But for one thing, “it’ll never go straight, and two, it’s never going to work, so you might as well slow it down.”