Halfway Through Golf Season? Don’t Ignore These Warning Signs

Golf season in New Hampshire goes fast.

By the middle of the season, you may have already played dozens of rounds, spent hours at the driving range, and taken hundreds or even thousands of swings.

Your body has been putting in work too.

Maybe your back feels a little tighter after 18 holes. Maybe your hip does not turn as easily as it did in May. Your shoulder may ache after a long range session. Or you may notice that it takes longer to loosen up before your first tee shot.

It can be tempting to ignore these little changes and keep playing.

But pain, stiffness, and changes in your swing can be early warning signs that your body is having trouble keeping up with the demands of golf.

At 603 PT & Wellness in Dover, NH, the goal is not to tell active golfers to stop doing what they love. It is to figure out why the problem is happening, address the cause, and help you stay on the course.

Your Golf Swing Requires Your Whole Body

A golf swing may look like it is mostly an arm movement, but your entire body is involved.

Your ankles, hips, spine, shoulders, core, and even your balance all play a role.

How your body is able to move can affect how you swing the golf club. We use a physical screening to look at a golfer's movement and identify limitations that may be affecting the swing.

This is important because your body is very good at finding another way to complete a movement.

If one area does not move well, another area may start doing extra work.

You might not notice this at first.

But after hundreds of golf swings, that extra work can start to show up as pain, stiffness, fatigue, or a change in your swing.

Warning Sign #1: Your Back Hurts After Every Round

A sore back once in a while may not be a major problem.

But if you regularly finish a round with low back pain, need medication after playing, or have pain that lasts into the next day, it is worth paying attention.

One important concept is that the lower back is often the place where a golfer feels pain, but it may not be where the problem started.

During the golf swing, much of your rotation should come from your hips, upper back, and shoulders. If your hips or upper back do not rotate well, your lower back may try to make up for that missing movement.

That is why simply stretching or rubbing the painful part of your back does not always solve the problem.

You have to ask: Why is the back working so hard?

Try this at home:

Before your next round, notice how easily you can rotate your upper body to each side.

Then check your hips. Does one hip rotate much easier than the other?

A big difference from side to side may be worth having assessed instead of just stretching the painful area.

Warning Sign #2: You Need Several Holes to “Loosen Up”

Do your first three or four holes feel more like your warm-up?

That is common, but it does not have to be normal.

Walking from your car to the first tee and taking a few practice swings may not be enough to prepare your body for golf.

Your golf swing requires mobility, balance, coordination, and the ability to produce force quickly. Mobility, stability, strength, motor control, and the ability to produce force quickly as important parts of physical preparation for golf.

Instead of using your first few holes to get your body ready, prepare before you tee off.

Why a Golf-Specific Warm-Up Matters

A good warm-up should look more like golf than a few long static stretches.

You want to gradually get your joints moving, wake up important muscles, practice rotation, and prepare your body to move faster.

Motor control work in the warm-up portion of golf training.

A simple golf warm-up may include:

• Upper back rotations

• Hip rotations

• Shoulder mobility

• Squats or lunges

• Gentle trunk movements

• Balance movements

• Slow practice swings

• Gradually faster swings

Start easy.

Then slowly increase the speed of your practice swings until your body feels ready to play.

A golf-specific warm-up can also give you useful information.

If your normal swing suddenly feels painful, restricted, or very different from one side to the other during your warm-up, do not ignore it.

Your body may be telling you something before you even reach the first tee.

Warning Sign #3: Your Swing Is Changing Because Something Hurts

Maybe you have started shortening your backswing because your shoulder hurts.

Maybe you avoid finishing your swing because your back feels tight.

Maybe your knee bothers you when you rotate through the ball.

Your body will naturally try to avoid painful movements.

The problem is that changing your movement to avoid one painful area may put extra stress somewhere else.

This approach recognizes that physical limitations can influence swing characteristics.

Rather than assuming there is one perfect swing for every golfer, the goal is to understand what an individual golfer is physically able to do.

If you are changing your swing because of pain, it may be time to look at your body before trying to fix everything with another swing lesson.

Your golf professional and physical therapist can also work together.

One helps with the golf swing.

The other helps determine whether your body has the mobility, strength, balance, and control needed to perform that swing comfortably.

Warning Sign #4: One Side Feels Much Tighter Than the Other

Golf is an uneven sport.

You swing in the same direction again and again.

Over time, it is not unusual to notice differences between your right and left sides.

But large changes deserve attention.

You may notice:

• One hip will not rotate as far

• One shoulder feels much tighter

• Turning one direction is painful

• Your balance is much worse on one leg

• You cannot comfortably reach the same positions you could earlier in the season

Hip mobility is especially important in golf. Restrictions in hip rotation can cause the body to find movement somewhere else, including through the lower back.

Do not automatically force the tight side into a deeper stretch.

First figure out why it is limited.

Sometimes you need mobility.

Sometimes you need strength or control.

Sometimes the movement needs to be modified because the area is irritated.

Warning Sign #5: You Are More Tired on the Back Nine

Golf requires more endurance than many people realize.

Walking the course, carrying or pushing your clubs, repeatedly bending over, practicing, and swinging all add up.

If you feel strong on hole 3 but your body starts falling apart by hole 14, conditioning may be part of the problem.

Fatigue can make it harder to control your movement.

This may be especially important for golfers over 35 who want to keep playing for decades.

Strength training should not just be about hitting the ball farther.

It can help you maintain muscle, stay strong, tolerate more activity, and continue doing the sports you enjoy as you age. We also include strength as one of the major pillars of golf physical preparation and emphasize its importance for older golfers.

Building and maintaining strength also matters beyond the golf course. Resistance and weight-bearing exercise can be an important part of staying strong and supporting long-term bone health as we age.

Warning Sign #6: Your Pain Keeps Coming Back

You rest for a few days.

It feels better.

You golf again.

It comes back.

Then you repeat the same cycle.

This is one of the biggest signs that you may need to do more than rest.

Rest can calm irritated tissue, but it does not necessarily change the reason the problem keeps returning.

Maybe your hip mobility is limited.

Maybe your upper back does not rotate well.

Maybe you have plenty of mobility but do not have enough strength to control it.

Maybe you have increased how often you are golfing faster than your body was ready for.

This is where a full-body assessment becomes useful.

What Can You Do at Home?

You do not have to wait until something becomes a major injury to take care of your body.

Start with a few simple habits:

Warm up before you golf.Give yourself 5 to 10 minutes before you tee off. Move your hips, upper back, shoulders, and legs. Then gradually build into your full swing.

Change positions during the round.Avoid staying in one position for too long. Walk when appropriate, move between shots, and keep your body loose.

Stay hydrated.New Hampshire summer golf can be hot and humid. Bring water and drink throughout your round.

Keep strength training.Do not stop your regular exercise just because golf season is busy. Your legs, hips, core, and upper body all need strength to handle the demands of golf.

Pay attention to patterns.Does your pain always start on the back nine? Only after using your driver? After two days of golf in a row? Does one direction of rotation always feel harder?

Those clues can help identify what is contributing to the problem.

You May Not Need to Stop Golfing

This is one of the biggest differences between proactive specialty physical therapy and the traditional healthcare model.

You do not always need to wait until the pain is severe, stop golfing for several weeks, get an X-ray, or wait for a referral before addressing a movement problem.

When appropriate, we want to find ways to keep you active while we work on the problem.

That may mean temporarily changing how many holes you play, spacing out rounds, adjusting practice volume, modifying certain exercises, or creating a warm-up specifically for your body.

At 603 PT & Wellness, sessions are one-on-one. This gives us time to look beyond the painful body part and evaluate how your entire body moves.

For a golfer, that might mean looking at:

• Hip rotation

• Upper and lower back mobility

• Shoulder mobility

• Balance

• Core control

• Lower-body strength

• Movement from side to side

• How those findings may relate to your golf swing

The goal is not only to calm down today's pain.

The goal is to help you understand your body, address the reason the problem keeps happening, build your capacity, and stay strong enough to keep golfing for years to come.

Don't Wait Until Golf Season Is Over

If your body is giving you warning signs halfway through golf season, listen to them.

Pain does not automatically mean you have damaged something or need to stop golfing.

But pain that keeps returning, worsening stiffness, loss of motion, weakness, or having to change your swing just to get through a round are all good reasons to have your movement assessed.

The earlier you understand what is going on, the more options you may have to keep doing what you love.

At 603 PT & Wellness in Dover, NH, we specialize in helping active adults 35+ resolve mechanical pain, protect their bone health, and stay strong for a long, active life without constantly suffering setbacks from pain and injury.

Our goal is not simply to get you through this golf season.

We want to help keep you strong enough to enjoy many more.

At 603 PT & Wellness in Dover, NH, we work with adults throughout the Seacoast region who want to stay active and strong as they age. Many of our patients come from nearby communities including:

• Dover

• Portsmouth

• Durham

• Somersworth

• Rochester

• Exeter

• Greenland

• Newmarket