Are fast swings, fat bags increasing back injuries on the PGA Tour?

This week on Bamberger In Briefa three-part series over three days that explores different aspects of the phrase that no golfer wants to say but most golfers eventually will: I can’t play today — my back is out. This series features points and insights from a recent GOLF.com interview with Dr. Tom LaFountain, PGA Tour director of chiropractic services, 27 years ago. and counting see some of golf’s most famous backs up close and personal.

Today, Part I: Explosive Swings + Exploding Purses = Exploding Backs

Tomorrow, Part II: JT and the Bad Back Band

Saturday, Part III: Your Back, Your Choice

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Part I: Exploding Explosives + Exploding Bags = Exploding Backs

When Tom LaFountain first entered the Tour as a chiropractor, in the late 1990s, after years of caring for Olympic athletes, he was surprised to see Tom Watson, Jay Haas and Bernhard Langer still playing regularly. As they neared their 40s, each of them expected to turn 50, enter the Champions Tour while continuing to play in other tour events and continue in general. And they do.

Those three, among many other professionals with familiar surnames, loved golf, were competitive and had great physiques. Yes, many of these Tour players have gone into replacements at 40,000 miles, as well as 80 and 100. Many of them had weeks here and there where they sat aside to rest and recuperate. But they never faced career-ending back problems. They all had the ability and willingness to take something out of their swing speed as needed, go a little further, save their backs, and live for another week of golf. The mid-tournament WD wasn’t a thing. For weeks, it wasn’t. For one thing, quitting showed weakness. In other cases, the players did not come this way not check money.

Early on, LaFountain noticed that 85 percent of players who entered the Tour’s fitness trailers with pain had lower back problems. Over the past 27 years, that percentage has not changed. What has changed, LaFountain said, are the numbers of players who are not feeling well, or worse. The stories are deep. It used to be muscles and joints. Now it’s muscles, joints – and discs. And LaFountain knows why: The curve has changed.

“The swing is faster, there’s more torque and rotation, there’s more pressure on the lower back,” he said in a recent interview. “There’s a distance arms race that never existed. Look at a guy like Jimmy Fuyrk. He’d say, ‘Yeah, there’s guys hitting 320, but I’m best at 280, 290. So I’ll get you there.’ And he played forever.’” That thought is dead, LaFountain said. The last customs were read by the various Trackman boxes for Tour up-and-down driving distances.

Of the three survivors mentioned above, Tom Watson had an unstoppable body, Jay Haas had a unique straight, stress-free backswing and Bernhard Langer was always in the gym, lifting some weights with light weights – and very light. At 52 he looked 32. He hadn’t gained five pounds. He played with his body so much that he didn’t know what it was like not to play.

As it played out, all three had professional careers that were still remarkably productive at their 40-year mark. It is the same with the older generation of scholars, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Hale Irwin, Billy Casper, Chi Chi Rodriguez among them. (You can go on and on from there.) You can make a similar list of minor players, including Fred Funk, Colin Montgomerie and Tom Lehman. Also, young though, are Zach Johnson, Henrik Stenson, Stewart Cink, all in their early 50s, and Phil Mickelson and Furyk, both 55.

They are the end of the line, LaFountain said. Rory McIlroy, 36, who withdrew from the Bay Hill event a few weeks ago due to a tweakback, has already said there is no chance he will still be playing professional golf in his 50s. Tiger Woods, 50 years old, has not played since 2020. Work that goes on and on, in the Watson-Haas-Langer tradition, isn’t even a desire, per LaFountain. “They want to succeed now,” LaFountain said. The temptation to do more now is to risk the length of the career to make money now.”

In 1995, the year before Woods turned pro, the PGA Tour’s season total was $66 million. Greg Norman was the cash winner, earning $1.6 million. By 2025, the total fund was $565 million. Scottie Scheffler made $19.5 million, just from the course. Lee Hodges finished 94th on the money list and made $1.6 million. The idea, says LaFountain, is to make it while you can. That is, do as much as possible in as little time as possible.

“That’s especially true for overseas players,” LaFountain said. Their families are thousands of kilometers away, their friends, lives they know better. It can be lonely, playing here. [outside of a LIV invite] there is no other place in the world where they can make this kind of money. If they win, great. But if they don’t do it, they still make a lot of money.” The closer you get to the green after one shot, on every par-4 and par-5 hole you play, the more money you’ll make. That means swinging hardthe lower body curls upwards.

Something has to give.

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