Justin Thomas’ back problems underscore the cost of the modern golf game

This is Part II of a three-part series Bamberger In Brief A series exploring different aspects of the phrase no golfer wants to say but most golfers end up with: I can’t play today — my back is out. This series features nuggets and insights from a recent GOLF.com interview with Dr. Tom LaFountain, the PGA Tour’s director of chiropractic services, has seen some of golf’s most famous golfers up close and personal for the past 27 years and counting.

Part I: Exploding Explosives + Exploding Bags = Exploding Backs

It’s coming tomorrow. . . Part III: Your Back, Your Choice

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Justin Thomas didn’t start his first tour this year until early March, at Bay Hill. That’s because last November he underwent a microdiscectomy procedure to relieve pain from a damaged disc in his lower back. If you know the name of this surgery, it is possible that Tiger Woods has had four microdiscectomies since 2014. micro part may make it sound like the least good you are, you’re out of the process.

Thomas did not play for 10 weeks. There are no Silly Season events. There is no TGL. There are no West Coast signature events. Dr. Tom LaFountain, the PGA Tour’s director of chiropractic services, was not surprised to see Thomas, who won the PGA Championship twice and has gone several rounds with Tiger Woods, sidelined like that, because he is not surprised there. anywhere player is placed on IL for back issues.

Rory McIlroy pulled out of the Arnold Palmer Invitational after one round after tweaking his back. When he played the following week at the Players Championship, he was not his usual self. Collin Morikawa did the same thing in the first round of the Players Championship, with the help of a practice swing. You could see Morikawa putting his hands on his back, it was clear that he was in pain. No player can fake an injury like that, not when you’re playing for the first $4.5 million check. But when you have the Masters coming up in April, the PGA Championship in May, the US Open in June and the British Open in July, you’re more than willing to give up a week to improve your chances of qualifying for golf’s four most prestigious events.

“You can see a really fit, strong, lean player like Collin and think, ‘Hey, nothing’s going to happen to him,’ but you never really know,” LaFountain said in a recent interview. “You don’t know what a player’s back strength is like. You don’t know what their strength and flexibility training is like. And you don’t know about their genetics, their family history of back problems. Did mom or dad have a bad back? Because that’s a big factor.

“The boys are going to see pictures of John Daly,” LaFountain continued. “He’s very overweight. He eats everything, he has serious health problems, but his back is fine. And they say, ‘Why me and not him?'” Genetics is a big part.

Thomas underwent his microdiscectomy at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. According to the HSS website, the surgery involves “removing a piece of herniated disc tissue that is causing the patient’s symptoms. Because most patients will recover from a herniated disc without surgery, a microdiscectomy is recommended only after standard treatment, including physical therapy, cortisone, and other medications have been tried for about six to 12 weeks, with no relief.”

On the HSS website, among other places, you will see surgery described as “minimally invasive.” In other words, it is not a heart transplant. But LaFountain notes the following: “Whenever you’ve had surgery, you’ve been cut, your body isn’t the same afterwards.

If you accept that as an important and logical truth, no A professional golfer will treat any surgery as unusual. Thomas did what he did because he was out of options. Tiger Woods has said the same thing after each of his seven known surgeries over the years.

LaFountain says there is another factor contributing to back problems that has been around forever but is prevalent now, with modern equipment that allows the player to swing more: “These guys are athletic, they are selfish.

LaFountain points out that Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus, John Daly, Phil Mickelson all had incredibly long backswings with the driver in hand, so much so that the driver’s head, at maximum power, was below the belt at the top of their backswings. As far as they were concerned, they had baggage time to build up speed gradually. If anything, they crossed the line at the top of their poles. That is, for a right-handed golfer, the shaft that points to the first base.

Nobody swings like that today. But with a very short swing that’s often pitched up (right-handed toward third base), players can still generate incredible speed, regardless of their body type. It’s hard to imagine the soft-handed left-hander Akshay Bhatia creating the same kind of swing speed that the legendary left-hander Phil Mickelson, with his wide frame and big arms and legs and Gumby-like flexibility, once did. But you do.

Bhatia has found a way to keep up with Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka, and Brooks Koepka, with the structure of his backhand. If you look at Bhatia just before he makes contact with the driver, his chest is towards the target and his hips are there with them, his back is very arched and his head is almost a foot on the ball than it was. His back foot is almost off the ground and he looks like he’s ready to jump. Are you a candidate for back issues?

“They’re all here,” LaFountain said.

Mickelson was wearing heavy leather golf shoes that seemed to weigh 30 pounds each. He was a frequent golfer. He won a PGA Championship at age 50 and was never sidelined or anything.

But Tiger Woods didn’t swing that way and the great golfers who came up to him didn’t swing that way, either. The tiger left down after that golf ball, and it had an impact and soon after that he had a violent thrust north. You have to see it in slow motion to really appreciate it, but it was there for all to see. He’s had all that surgery, sure — but also $120 million in tour earnings, the lion’s share of which comes from his 82 PGA Tour wins.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com