The Most Common Injuries In Junior Golfers | Nashville Golf Rehab
Junior golf is becoming more competitive every year. In Nashville, many young golfers are practicing multiple days per week, playing tournaments on the weekends, and spending significant amounts of time working on their swing.
That dedication can be a major advantage. But when practice volume increases faster than a young golfer's ability to control and efficiently produce the golf swing, pain can develop.
At Integrated Rehab and Performance Center, we work with junior golfers who are dealing with pain as well as young golfers who want to improve their movement before pain becomes a problem. One of the biggest things we have noticed is that pain in a young golfer should not simply be dismissed as part of playing the sport.
Some soreness after a demanding tournament or practice session is normal. But persistent or recurring pain deserves a closer look.
For Nashville parents, understanding the most common problems we see—and why they occur—can help you recognize when your junior golfer may need more than just a few days off.
The Most Common Problem We See: Trail-Side Low Back Pain
The most common pain pattern we see in junior golfers is low back pain on the trail side.
For a right-handed golfer, this is typically the right side of the low back. For a left-handed golfer, it would generally be the left side.
This pattern is particularly interesting because the problem isn't necessarily that the low back is "weak." Instead, the low back can become the area that is absorbing movement that should be occurring elsewhere. In other words, the low back is becoming a major driver of the swing when it should be a minor player.
Why does this happen?
A golf swing requires a tremendous amount of coordinated movement between the hips, pelvis, thoracic spine, rib cage, and lumbar spine. Junior golfers are still developing this movement strategy. If the trail hip does not have enough mobility, the thoracic spine and rib cage do not rotate well, or the golfer cannot effectively control the pelvis, the body still has to find a way to complete the golf swing. One thing we know about young people and kids: they are fantastic compensators. One common compensation is excessive side bending and lateral tilting through the pelvis and trunk. Instead of distributing movement throughout the hips and thoracic spine, the golfer may create excessive motion through the lumbar spine. Over hundreds or thousands of swings, that repeated stress can eventually become painful.
The trail hip can be an important piece of the puzzle
The trail hip plays an important role in the backswing and transition. If the golfer cannot adequately move through the trail hip, the pelvis may compensate by moving excessively. The lumbar spine may then become responsible for creating motion that it was not designed to repeatedly produce at high volumes. This is why simply stretching the low back will not solve the problem.
If the underlying restriction is coming from the trail hip or thoracic spine, repeatedly treating the painful area without addressing those restrictions may provide temporary relief without changing the reason the pain developed. We also see that power development strategies that miss out on weight transfer and lead side leg ground reaction forces also lead to over-emphasis or overuse of the trail side lower back. Working on anything that may be restricting this patter and introducing it into the golf swing is critically important and often missed in passive treatments and PT.
Rib cage and thoracic spine mobility matter
The thoracic spine and rib cage also need to rotate effectively during the golf swing. When this area lacks mobility, a junior golfer may find another way to create the necessary rotation. Again, the lumbar spine can become the place where that movement occurs.
This is another reason our evaluation of a junior golfer with low back pain does not stop at the low back.
We want to understand how the foot, ankle, hip, pelvis, thoracic spine, rib cage, and shoulder complex are contributing to the movement strategy. The painful area is not always the source of the problem. A full comprehensive evaluation tells the story.
Other common Injuries in Junior Golfers
Shoulder, Elbow, and Wrist Pain in Junior Golfers
The other major category of problems we see in young golfers involves the upper extremity.
Shoulder pain, elbow pain, and wrist pain can all develop in junior golfers who are practicing frequently. In many cases, the issue is not simply that the golfer is practicing "too much." The bigger problem is that they are repeatedly practicing a movement pattern that places excessive stress on a particular structure. It is obvious that developing golfers don't always have a finished swing!
Junior golfers are still learning how to sequence and control the golf swing.
That means their swing mechanics can change dramatically as they grow, become stronger, and develop better coordination. During this development, golfers can develop inefficient patterns that create excessive forces at the shoulder, elbow, or wrist. This becomes particularly important when practice volume is high.
A young golfer may hit hundreds of balls while working on a new swing change.
If the movement pattern is inefficient, they aren't simply practicing the golf swing. They are practicing that inefficient movement pattern hundreds of times. In particular, fat or chunky shots can create significant stress at the upper extremity.
One example we commonly see is the young golfer who consistently hits chunky shots. Contact with the ground here can create a significant amount of force that creates rapid stretch into the muscles around the elbow (golfers’ elbow), forces into the small bones of the wrist (wrist pain), and high load into the support structures of the shoulder (shoulder pinching or achiness). Over time, that repeated loading can contribute to pain around the elbow, wrist, or shoulder.
This is why we don't want to simply ask:
"Where does it hurt?"
We also want to ask:
"Why is this golfer repeatedly putting stress into that area?"
That distinction is incredibly important when working with young athletes.
Pain Is Often a Movement Problem Before It Becomes an Injury Problem
One of the most important concepts for parents to understand is that pain does not always mean something has been catastrophically injured. Sometimes pain is the body's response to repeated exposure to a movement or load that it is not currently prepared to handle. That is particularly relevant for junior golfers since their bodies are changing in strength, length, coordination, swing mechanics, and practice volume and intensity. All of these factors need to be considered.
A junior golfer who has no pain today can still have movement restrictions that increase their risk of developing pain when practice or tournament volume increases.
This is why we believe prevention should involve more than simply telling a young golfer to stretch. We need to locate and address true joint mobility and coordination deficits!
When Should Parents Take Their Golfer's Pain Seriously?
This is an important question. Parents should not panic every time their child mentions soreness after golf. A demanding tournament, long practice session, or significant increase in activity can produce temporary soreness. A short period of recovery can be a reasonable solution to this.
In many cases, we recommend a brief period of reduced activity or rest—approximately 48 hours— and then reassessing how the golfer feels in cases of significant soreness or minor pain. The important question is what happens next. If the pain improves and does not return when normal activity resumes, that may be reassuring.
But if the pain:
Does not improve after a short period of rest
Immediately returns when the golfer resumes playing
Continues to worsen
Begins affecting the golf swing
Changes how the golfer moves
Becomes a recurring problem
then it deserves more attention.
Persistent pain in a young golfer shouldn't be normalized.
Children and teenagers are not simply smaller versions of adults. They are developing athletes. Lasting pain in a young athlete deserves appropriate evaluation. The goal is not to keep them out of golf. The goal is to understand why the pain is occurring and what needs to change so they can safely continue developing as a golfer.
What Should a Comprehensive Junior Golf Evaluation Look Like?
When a young golfer comes to us with pain, we don't want to immediately give them a generic rehab program based on the location of pain. A junior golfer with trail-side low back pain will need a detailed plan based on their physical characteristics and movement evaluation. Even two golfers with the same diagnosis may have completely different movement restrictions and swing characteristics contributing to their symptoms.
A comprehensive evaluation should consider several pieces.
1. The painful area
We need to understand exactly where the golfer hurts, what movements reproduce the symptoms, how long the symptoms have been present, and how the symptoms respond to activity.
2. Joint mobility
We assess whether restrictions exist at important areas such as the ankle, hip, thoracic spine, shoulder, and other joints that contribute to the golf swing.
3. Movement patterns
We want to understand how the golfer controls their pelvis, trunk, hips, and upper extremities.
Can they separate their upper and lower body?
Can they maintain posture?
Can they rotate without excessive compensation?
Can they control their body while producing force?
4. Strength and stability
Mobility is only one part of the equation.
A golfer may have adequate range of motion but lack the strength or control necessary to use that motion effectively.
5. Golf swing mechanics and sequencing
The golf swing itself needs to be considered.
A physical restriction may contribute to a swing fault, while a swing fault may expose a physical limitation.
These factors interact.
6. Practice and playing volume
We also need to understand how much the golfer is actually doing.
A young golfer practicing two hours every day is experiencing a very different workload than a golfer who practices twice per week.
Tournament schedules, practice sessions, strength training, and other sports all contribute to the overall load.
Don't Just Treat the Pain—Find the Reason for It
This may be the most important takeaway for parents. If your junior golfer has wrist pain, simply treating the wrist may not be enough. If they have elbow pain, treating the elbow may not solve the problem. And if they have trail-side low back pain, repeatedly stretching or adjusting the low back without understanding the hip, pelvis, rib cage, and thoracic spine may miss an important part of the problem.
Nashville Junior Golf Is Competitive. Your Child's Health Matters Too.
The Nashville golf community has an incredible number of opportunities for young golfers to compete and improve. That is a great thing.
But more golf is not always better golf. Young golfers need the physical capacity to handle the amount of golf they are playing. They also need to develop the movement skills, strength, mobility, coordination, and swing mechanics necessary to manage the forces created by the golf swing. If your child develops pain, don't immediately assume they need to quit golf, but don't ignore persistent pain either.
A short period of recovery may be appropriate. If the pain does not improve or quickly returns when golf resumes, it is worth having the golfer evaluated by someone who understands both the developing athlete and the golf swing.
At Integrated Rehab and Performance Center, our approach is to look beyond the painful area and understand the entire movement system contributing to the golfer's symptoms. For junior golfers, that means considering their physical development, movement restrictions, strength and control, golf swing, practice volume, and the demands being placed on their body.
The goal isn't simply to get a young golfer out of pain. It's to help them understand and address why the pain developed so they can continue developing as a healthy, capable golfer.
-Dr. Nick DC, MS, TPI, CSCS
If you would like to learn more about your body, pain, and performance, send Dr. Nick an email at contact@integratedrpc.com or call at (585)478-4379, or schedule a FREE discovery visit at Contact.
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