Back injuries a recurring problem for many of world’s top golfers

In his 24th Masters, Phil Mickelson is an evangelist spreading the gospel according to Ernest Jones, whose 1937 book, Swing the Clubhead Method, is Mickelson's sacred text. He teed off yesterday at Augusta National with a fourth green jacket in his sights and a message to spread about longevity in the sport.

At 45, Mickelson has played without any of the serious back pain that has plagued golfers nearly half his age, including the major champions Rory McIlroy, 26, and Jason Day, 28.

Back injuries ruled out former champions Tiger Woods, 40, and Fred Couples, 56, from this year's tournament.

Not even the Augusta National chairman, Billy Payne, is immune. Payne, 68, has had multiple back injuries, most recently in November, and said he was eyeing a June return to the course.

Day, the reigning PGA Championship winner, has dealt with back problems since he was 13, he said. “You can walk up the range here and ask how many players have back problems and probably a good percentage of them do,” he said.

“I’ve just got to keep on top of what I need to do to keep myself strong and fit and ready to go play tournaments, and then hopefully over time strengthening it each and every year.”

McIlroy, a four-time Major champion who can complete the career Grand Slam with a victory in the Masters, said back problems as a 19-year-old prompted him to commit to the gym regimen that has turned him into one of the fittest players on the PGA and European Tours.

“I realised that this isn’t going to get any better unless I start to take care of myself better,” said McIlroy.

Bad back

A bad back has compromised the career of Louis Oosthuizen, the 2010 British Open champion and 2012 Masters runner-up. One of his preventive measures is to travel with his own mattress, one not too firm or too soft. He pays to have it transported in an equipment van that travels from tournament to tournament.

“I have a bit of history with lower back, so, yeah, I thought, ‘why not’?” said Oosthuizen.

He said he had not had any issues with his back since he began travelling with a mattress of the same firmness.

When it comes to back problems, why have the teens become the new forties? At New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, Dr Andrew Hecht, the chief of spine surgery, said he has treated a 14-year-old golfer with a stress fracture and a 16-year-old in the sport with a lumbar disk herniation.

Mickelson said he believed the root of the problem was the obsession with power. He said the best method to prevent back issues was a long swing with passive wrists and light grip pressure, one that emphasized the rotation of the hand around the body to allow the club head to swing the hands rather than relying on the big muscles of the back, shoulders and legs to generate torque and swing speed.

Practice round

Mickelson’s beliefs are based on the teachings of Jones, who absorbed the lessons of Sir Walter G. Simpson, the author of the 1887 instruction book

The Art of Golf.

On Tuesday, Mickelson played a practice round with Bryson DeChambeau, a 22-year-old amateur who plays with a set of irons that are the same length. DeChambeau, who will turn pro after the Masters, said he believed his clubs had the potential to transform the sport by minimising stress on the lower back.

With variable-length irons, he explained, the golfer’s posture changes, however slightly, with each club. “Barely, but enough to make a difference,” DeChambeau said. “And when that happens, you start moving your muscles in a different way, fractionally, but your muscles have acquired or have moulded to be comfortable with a certain position. Your body is not accustomed to that angle.”

In that way the body, specifically the lower back, becomes more susceptible to injuries, he said. “For people with back problems, the issue comes about because you’re changing positions every single time you go to a different club,” he added. DeChambeau was asked what it would take for people to become believers in his theory.

“It would take me playing really well,” he said. New York Times Service