Playing Golf with Injuries | Paddy’s Golf Tips #52 | Padraig Harrington

In this lesson, playing golf with injuries. After seeing a doctor or physiotherapist to get the injury checked out, in addition to stretching and exercising, I discuss how you can play with certain injuries, which is generally by increasing movement during the swing. I provide tips on playing with pain in the lower back, the neck, the ankles and the elbows, together with some dos and don’ts.

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Welcome back to Patty’s golf tips we’re going to talk about trying to play golf with injuries the winner of the gold medal and the champion golfer of the year is Podrick [Applause] Harrington First and foremost if you have an injury do go to see a physiotherapist a doctor get it checked out I am not in any shape of form saying you should play golf with injuries but I’m talking about if you have an injury and you continue to play how do you handle

That generally it’s by increase of movement believe it or not so let’s talk I think nearly every golfer has a choke point in their body that seems to reply get injured so for me I’ve always had trouble with my neck and I’ve had tennis elbow so I had two choke points but

Everybody some like I’ve never had a problem with a lower back touchwood there’s a lot of people who have lower backs or will have knee or will have a hip might have a foot every golfer seems to have a point that takes all that pressure all the gForce in the body

Seems to hit one point and it it locks up so I would say to anybody identify your problem area and tackle it off the golf course you’ve got to you got to go physio get some treatment get it diagnosed get the symptoms not just where it’s hurting but it could be

Coming from somewhere else get yourself a program and work at it now this is part of it if you have a problem like me say in this area of my neck there’s no point in me doing somebody else’s program that takes say 20 minutes in the morning of stretching

I’m better off doing 5 minutes let say 10 minutes General stretching and then 10 minutes focused on my problems so at least half your stretching should be focused on your area that you’re particularly tighten yes do some general motion and warm-ups and whatever it is

You do but at least half it should be in your area you should probably do it twice a day and you should break it down into exercises that maybe only take a minute so that if you’re waiting on your cup of coffee and Starbucks you can

Actually do the exercise okay so make it short I I know myself to get my exercises done I get out of my bed in the morning I do my exercises straight away and before I go to bed at night I do my exercises because it has to be a

Habit but I keep it short you know when you know at a tournament those exercises might take 30 minutes in the morning 20 minutes at night but at home no more than 10 minutes because I know I won’t do it so keep it short and focus on your

Area of problem okay now let’s get back to the actual swinging they say do see a doctor do get a physio but if you’re struggling there’s things you can do so the most common one is lower back pain okay and the amount of people who who

Get treated for lower back pain and they go back playing golf because they love it but the golf is actually part of the problem we’re causing the problem we’re not sorting it out anyway not allowing it to go away so the golf swing as I said with all the power and you’re kind

Of jammed in here and you you even see the new young guys are like over here what side Bend and like wow could you imagine trying to do all that go back but yes you get jammed into this position and it’s if you’ve got a problem in your lower back it’s going to

Keep hurting so very simple drill Gary player has used this on the golf course in tournaments I’ve used it in tournaments when you hit the golf ball the last thing we want to do is get stuck into this lovely position here it’s going to hurt your

Back if you have a problem so you just release it and this will help your golf game would won’t do you any harm and just walk after it so now I have zero pressure on my back there I’ve just basically hit it and stepped I could

Have done a better job than that I haven’t done it in a while we going to do it one more time just like so it’s not going to affect the go shot and it’s just taking all the pressure there’s no squeezing I’ve taken all the pressure off okay

That’s definitely if you’ve got a problem with your back lower back that’s a great one if you got a problem with your neck okay do not keep your head down it’s bad for your golf swing anyway to keep your head down so certainly don’t do it if you’re going to have a problem

With your neck so we don’t want if you struggle with your shoulders by the way for anybody who practices who plays a bit don’t practice when you’re tired CU if you’re in bad posture that’s when these injuries come in so if it might be necessary for

It’d be good habit if you had a minute or two stretch before you started any practice anyway so that again focus on I do Tom house throwing protocols for my shoulders I focus on my shoulders keep them set to take the pressure off my

Neck I do a lot of work on my neck and I have a couple of minutes I have different programs but I have little ex if I’m rushing back out to the golf course I’ll tackle these areas as a priority over hitting golf balls because

Again I want them to sit down and not cause any tension so if you have problems with your neck we don’t want to obviously roll up get tight we definitely don’t want to hit the golf ball with our head down in this position we want

To release the head so we got to go with you know anak arston if you’re struggling with your neck it’s not good you can keep an eye on the golf ball I’m not telling you not but don’t be trying to keep your head down I really didn’t do a great job on

That I think I could have released it even more so perfect strike there and as you can see my head was releasing with the club head it won’t affect it it could actually make you a better golfer but again it takes the pressure off this is not going to do your neck

Any good so release your head if you’re struggling with your neck release your lower back by stepping forward if you’re struggling if you’re struggling with your feet your ankles you can rotate them a little bit in different directions to help with the pressure and you can also step again the stepping

Will help take the pressure off your feet as well so that’s not a bad idea as well to to use the step in motion if you’ve got problems with your ankles or your knees I had problems with my tennis elbow it went away from me within a week

Of doing the backstroke so what you tend to find with a lot of injuries I was sore here but it’s either coming from your the lower or above joint the the one that you’re soaring mine was coming from my shoulder so now I spend a lot of time as I said earlier

Doing Tom house exercises all sorts of all sorts of funny motions and there’s one you can try at home H just to get my shoulder loose set back the minute I did that tennis elbow’s gone away now I will say I I’m choosing my words wisely here if you have wrist arm shoulder

Injuries you are a if you’re hitting off a mat you’re just a moral it’s not going to do it’s going to hurt it’s going to damage you do not hit off the mat if you have to practice in a driving range tee the ball up you don’t

Have to hit it off the actual mat Tee It Up and hit it with whatever Club practice your driver if you have to Hitting off a match it doesn’t it’s not realistic to golf anyway because it’s it it you get away with a lot of bad shots

Off a mat plus it hurts it will Dam if I I know if I hit drivers off the deck off a mat you know 20 30 drivers I’ll have to get fiz to work out my arms because my wrists will lock up like I’ll be soaring through my hands there so don’t

Hit off the deck I I did say you’re Mor if you done it I have done it obviously and still to this day do it at times but I’m very wary of there is an issue to Hitting off a mat Tee It Up and play off the tea

On that putting a heavy watch on your wrist is not a good thing either a lot of the wrist specialist would tell you that weight is not doing you any favors so you know don’t have a heavy watch on your wrist that’s not going to help

Things either so again always go to your physio remember if you’re soar in one place it’s probably coming from somewhere else do your exercise most of your program should be focused on those exercises but when you get in the golf course you will find movement more movement will generally

Release the area that getting in trouble and and stop you from compounding your your your injury and making it worse so by stepping through or stepping back or releasing your head there’s lots of these things that will help restricting the movement generally is what causes the the most injuries when it comes to

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