Injuries become common among top stars

Tiger Woods withdrew from one tournament during a round this season and ended up having back surgery. Phil Mickelson has withdrawn twice from events, once with a back issue and another with a strained muscle in his side. Jason Day missed six weeks because of a thumb injury, and Justin Rose missed three weeks because of tendonitis in his right shoulder.

And those are just players ranked in the top eight in the world.

The PGA Tour might have to start releasing an injury report before each tournament.

With the exception of Woods – who is recuperating from surgery and won’t play this week – the aforementioned players were on the course Tuesday playing practice rounds as the 78th Masters Tournament got back on schedule after bad weather suspended play Monday.

Mickelson was the only one of that group who played last week’s Houston Open, and he said he feels healthy now.

“I like coming into this week being in contention a few times and having that confidence and experience to build on,” said Mickelson, who finished tied for 12th last week. “But I have to give myself a little bit of slack. So physically (now), I feel great.”

Six-time Masters champion Jack Nicklaus said in March that “everybody plays hurt. All these guys are hurting. It’s like that in every sport.”

What is different is how many top players have missed action because of injuries this season.

Perhaps the most career-threatening injury for a golfer is a back injury. Nicklaus knows all about that.

“I was injected nine times in my back by the time I was 19 years old,” he said. “Through the vertebra. I think that’s a lot of why I lost so much height. I think over time, it destroyed me. I’ve lost over 4 inches in height. Does my back hurt? Yeah, 24/7. Do I worry about it? No. I still function and so forth.”

Nicklaus said he played with an ailing back for his entire PGA Tour career.

“I always did enough exercise that kept me able to play,” he said. “There were times when I couldn’t. Fire­stone in 1981, they carried me off the practice tee before the final round. In the Masters in 1983, I played the first round with (Gary) Player and (Fred) Cou­ples and I couldn’t get to the tee (for the second round).”

The exercises Nicklaus did back in his day, and the time he spent doing them, are nothing like what top players such as Woods do now.

Some older players, such as Mark O’Meara, think they are overdoing the gym work and perhaps making their backs worse.

“I could be wrong,” O’Meara said, “and I’ve said something to Tiger about this: I understand you have to be strong, but it does seem like a lot of these guys who have hit the gym pretty hard, and not just Tiger – you look at (David) Duval, you look at Greg Norman, you look at the guys who really busted it - they tend to get hurt a lot more. Whether that’s just a coincidence I don’t know.

“I don’t think Tom Watson when he was in his prime went to the gym a whole lot,” O’Meara said. “I don’t think Jack Nicklaus or Johnny Miller or those guys were in the gym a lot. Those kids today are in there pounding it hard with the weights and I’m like, ‘Really?’ ”

Steve Stricker, one of Woods’ favorite playing partners in team competitions, agrees that Woods and others might be overly enthusiastic in the gym.

“For guys like Tiger, or I can remember Bill Glasson, Keith Clearwater, guys that keep themselves in really good shape, it almost seems like they are more prone to injury,” Stricker said. “Whether they don’t give their bodies a rest or a break … you don’t see too many overweight guys or guys that don’t take as good of care get hurt, for whatever reason. It’s like they are getting away, they are getting their rest, and it’s the guys that continually pound the balls and continually hit the gym that sometimes seem to have some of the issues. Whether that’s the case with Tiger or not or if it’s just all the practice over the years, I just don’t think the body is meant to withstand all that repetition.”

At 24, Rory McIlroy is a gym rat – he worked out at two different times Monday – but he’s careful how much he does of certain workouts, which he monitors, he said.

“It’s a fine line, a fine balance,” McIlroy said. “We are training to be strong in our postures and strong in the golf swing. And then on top of that, obviously people want to push their limits or they want to get stronger and they want to do something and they want to see how much they can lift; they want to see how fast they can run. I guess that’s just human instinct, always seeing what you can do better.

“I think sometimes your enthusiasm has to be contained a little bit because you’ve got to think about your health, and ultimately what we do is play golf and there’s only a certain level of fitness you need for that,” McIlroy said.

“Sometimes moderation is key in life,” O’Meara said. “Stay fit, but do you really need to overdo it? I don’t know. Everybody’s body is different. Some people hold up better than other people.”

Because of the repetition of the golf swing, golfers’ bodies sometimes pay a price.

“It is an awkward motion,” Jim Furyk said. “Guys are good athletes now and they are bigger and stronger and swinging a lot faster, and over the course of time, it takes its toll.

“Backs are difficult. I’ve been very fortunate to be pretty healthy throughout my career that way, but for the friends that I have that deal with that, it’s tricky business and you’re never really quite sure when the next spasm or when the next episode jumps up.”

One positive is that top players who are injured don’t have to rush back into competition until they are fully healed. Unlike players in Nick­laus’ generation, when the purses were much lower, star players can afford to sit out more time.

“When you’re playing hurt, there is a level where you can play or you can’t play and whether it’s a sustained thing or just an acute thing,” Nicklaus said. “If it’s a sustained thing, and you start adjusting your golf swing to accommodate it, that’s when I think it’s time to get away from it. That’s when I think you cause yourself a lot of permanent damage.”