Golfers most commonly complain of discomfort in the lower back, neck, upper back and hips, in that order, according to a new analysis.
A medical team at Seoul Bumin Hospital, including Dr. Seo Kyung-muk from the departments of rehabilitation medicine and orthopedics, recently published a paper titled "Physical Therapy Services at the 2023-2024 Korea Professional Golfers' Association (KPGA) Tour: A Retrospective Evaluation of Injuries and Treatment" in the Korean Journal of Sports Medicine.
The paper is based on physical therapy records of players who visited the treatment room at KPGA Tour events in 2023 and 2024. Bumin Hospital's medical team has been providing medical services to players since signing an official partnership agreement with the KPGA in 2023. Over the two years, four qualified physical therapists provided a total of 10,565 physical therapy sessions, including repeat visits, during 40 tournaments. Seoul Bumin Hospital is the first hospital in Asia to operate an in-house golf swing analysis facility, where professional and amateur golfers can have their swing, muscle strength, flexibility and balance assessed, and receive prescriptions addressing pain causes and swing issues.
One notable finding in the paper is the number of physical therapy sessions by injury site, which can also be viewed as the body parts where ordinary golfers are most prone to injury.
Over the two years, injuries occurred most frequently in the lower back, followed by the neck, upper back, hips, ankles (feet), calves, shoulders, knees, elbows, hands (fingers) and forearms. Broadly classified, the spine accounted for 63.6%, the lower extremities 23.0% and the upper extremities 13.4%.
The medical team noted that a golf swing is a high-speed, one-way rotational movement that places significant strain on major joints and muscles through rapid force transfer, with injury prevalence especially pronounced in the spine. They also reported that knee and wrist injuries saw the highest growth rates in 2024 compared with 2023, rising 237.5% and 161.7% respectively. They estimated that knee joint issues may stem from fatigue due to prolonged walking combined with modern golf techniques that utilize ground reaction force, while left wrist injuries may be caused by technical factors at the moment of impact.
The study shows that identifying golf's unique injury patterns and strengthening initial response systems such as warm-ups and cool-downs can help maintain player performance and support recovery.
In fact, the implications appear far greater for ordinary amateur golfers than for professionals. Think it doesn't apply because you're not a pro who plays every day? Amateurs are actually more exposed to injury risk because they use certain body parts infrequently. Their muscle strength and flexibility are insufficient. Inaccurate movements place stress in the wrong directions on the lower back, neck and wrists, more easily causing pain.
"Many people think there's no way to get injured in a sport where you hit a stationary ball, but because golf inherently involves moving the body in only one direction, the American sports medicine community also classifies it as a sport with moderate risk," said Seo Kyung-muk, director of the Sports Rehabilitation Center at Seoul Bumin Hospital. "It's a good idea to regularly do stretching and light strength training for areas at high risk of injury, and hitting more than 100 balls in an hour at the driving range can strain the body and should be avoided."
These days, more people are heading out to courses and driving ranges. "How long you play" is just as important a measure of a successful golf journey as "how well you play."
They say the nearly only downside of golf is that it's so enjoyable you get easily addicted. I hope to share with you the pleasure of "reading golf," which is yet another dimension beyond playing or watching the sport.
