Golf and Your Back: Swinging Without Paying For It

Merseyside has some of the finest golf in the country on its doorstep, and August is when people play the most of it. It is also the time of year I hear the same sentence most often: I love the game, but my back has had enough.

Low back pain is the most common complaint in golfers at every level, from club members to tour professionals. That is not because golf is dangerous. It is because the swing asks something quite specific of the spine and then asks for it again, several hundred times a week if you count the range.

What the swing actually does to your spine

A golf swing combines rotation, side bending and extension, under compression, at speed. Those movements are each fine on their own. Combined and repeated, they concentrate load on the small joints at the back of the spine and on the discs, particularly on the lead side, the left for a right-handed player.

Then there is volume. A round is around eighty strokes, plus practice swings, plus a bucket at the range, plus bending to tee up and retrieve the ball roughly a hundred times. Golf back pain is usually a story about repetition, not about one bad shot.

Where the pain is usually coming from

Most golfing back pain falls into a few recognisable patterns.

Pain on the lead side that is worse with extension and rotation, sharper at the top of the follow-through, and eased by bending forward, often points towards the small facet joints at the back of the spine.

Pain that is worse with sitting, bending and the drive home, and that occasionally refers into the buttock or leg, has more of a disc-related flavour.

Pain that is really a hip problem in disguise is very common and frequently missed. If your lead hip cannot rotate well, your lumbar spine will make up the difference, because you rotate where you can rather than where you should.

Pain across the buttock and outer hip that comes on late in a round is usually a muscular endurance issue rather than anything structural.

It is rarely just the back

This is the part that changes people's golf. The lumbar spine is not built for large amounts of rotation. The thoracic spine and the hips are. When those two are stiff, the lower back takes on movement it was never designed to produce, and it does so under speed.

So the three things I check first in a golfer with back pain are thoracic rotation, hip internal rotation on both sides, and how well the trunk resists movement under load rather than creating it. Improving the first two usually reduces the demand on the back more effectively than anything done to the back itself.

What actually helps

Restore rotation where it belongs. Thoracic rotation drills in four-point kneeling or side-lying, and hip rotation work, done most days for a few minutes. Little and often beats one heroic session.

Build endurance, not just strength. Trunk endurance work such as side planks, dead bugs and bird dogs holds up well in the evidence for low back pain generally. Golf is a four-hour activity, so endurance is the quality that matters by the sixteenth.

Get stronger through the hips and legs. Squats, hinges and split squats. A golfer who can load their hips well simply asks less of their spine.

Warm up properly. Arriving four minutes before your tee time and hitting a driver is a genuine risk. Five to ten minutes of rotation, hip swings and gradually building half swings changes how the first three holes feel.

Look at swing volume, not just technique. Two hundred balls at the range after a winter off is the same category of error as jumping from no running to ten kilometres.

Consider swing modification with a coach. A more modern, less extreme separation between hips and shoulders, and a follow-through that does not force the spine into a deep arch, can reduce load significantly. This is worth doing with a professional who understands what your back needs.

The unglamorous details

Two small things cause more trouble than they should. The first is bending to pick the ball out of the hole and to tee up, roughly a hundred flexed movements a round. Learning to hinge at the hips or use a lead-leg reach spreads that load far better.

The second is carrying. A single-strap bag loads one side repeatedly for four hours. A double strap, a trolley or a buggy on a bad week is not a concession, it is sensible load management.

When back pain needs urgent medical attention

Most golfing back pain settles. But seek urgent medical assessment, the same day, if you develop numbness around the saddle area between the legs, difficulty passing urine or loss of control of bladder or bowels, or weakness in both legs. Those are potential signs of cauda equina syndrome and are a medical emergency.

Also arrange prompt review if you have back pain alongside unexplained weight loss, fever, night pain that is unrelated to position, a history of cancer, or pain following a significant fall, particularly if you have osteoporosis.

Should you stop playing?

Usually not. Complete rest tends to make backs stiffer, more deconditioned and more sensitive. What normally works better is modifying for a few weeks: fewer holes, a trolley, no range sessions, easier swings, and a specific programme running alongside. Most golfers I see are back to a full round faster by adjusting than by stopping.

If you want to understand the bigger picture of back pain and what the evidence supports, I have written more on my back pain in Liverpool page and on the back pain condition page.

Getting assessed

An assessment for a golfer should involve more than poking the sore bit. I look at hip and thoracic movement, trunk control, how you load through each leg, and what your playing and practice week actually looks like. I visit patients at home across Liverpool at £90 a session, which lets me see how you move in your own environment, and I offer online video consultations at £60 if you would rather start remotely. No GP referral is required, and I work evenings Monday to Friday, plus Saturday and Sunday daytimes.

If your back is limiting your golf this summer, let us sort it before the winter stiffness arrives. Book at /portal/book or call me on +44 7443 357020.