Modern professional golf looks very different from the game it was 20 years ago. Today’s players travel constantly, train like elite athletes and rely heavily on support teams to stay healthy and competitive throughout a relentless season. At the heart of that support system on the HotelPlanner Tour are Therapy Lead Poora Singh and Strength and Conditioning Lead William Wayland. Between them, they help players manage everything from recovery and rehabilitation to training, sleep and workload management — all while navigating the unique pressures of life on tour.

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What does a typical tournament week look like for you both?

Poora Singh: During a typical week on the DP World Tour and HotelPlanner Tour, we’ll usually arrive on the Monday and recce the venue. We’ll find out where the treatment unit is, where access to emergency services is, where the gym and recovery areas are and all those kinds of things. Then we’ll start on Tuesday morning. On the HotelPlanner Tour, players book 30-minute treatment sessions through our booking system, and we’ll usually work from around 10am until 6pm.

Once the tournament starts, the days become much longer. Wednesday is a pro-am day, so we’ll start at 7am and work through until 6pm. That then continues through Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with Sunday usually finishing around lunchtime. On average, we’ll each see around 18 players a day, so it can be very intense.

On the DP World Tour, there are more physios and no booking system because there are usually three physios on at all times. The working day runs from an hour and a half before the first tee time until an hour and a half after the final group comes in. At events like The Open, where tee times can start at 6am, you’re arriving at 4am or 4:30am. The hours are demanding, but that comes with the territory.

William Wayland: I generally arrive on the Monday as well and assess what facilities we have available. Sometimes we’ll have a gym truck on site, but that’s not always the case on the HotelPlanner Tour, so we often have to find local gyms or training facilities nearby and organise access for players during the week.

Typically, I’m there from early Tuesday morning until around 6pm, then the same again on Wednesday.

Most of the work is one-to-one coaching with players. That can include physical testing, training sessions, programming adjustments or rehab support where players have been referred over by the physios.

There are also players who work with us regularly throughout the season, while others might only come in occasionally for assessments or specific help.

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How physically demanding is modern professional golf compared to what people might expect?

WW: The sport has become increasingly physically demanding and you can see that in the players themselves. They’re taller, heavier, more muscular, more explosive and generally much stronger than golfers were 20 years ago. That tells you something fundamental has changed in the nature of the game.

In the past, there wasn’t a huge physical gap between golfers and athletes in other sports. Now, the physicality of elite golfers has changed dramatically, particularly over the last two decades, and that’s reflected in the style of golf they play.

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What are the most common injuries or issues you deal with?

PS: If we’re talking purely about areas of the body, lower back issues are the most common, followed closely by hips, necks, shoulders, wrists and knees.

A lot of what we see are fatigue-based injuries. Players might have been on the road for six or seven weeks straight, not recovering properly, not sleeping well enough or not maintaining good nutrition and training habits.

You have to remember they could be hitting 200 to 300 balls a day, then playing tournament rounds, finishing late in the evening, trying to recover and eat properly, then waking up at 5am for another early tee time. It’s incredibly demanding physically. If those recovery habits aren’t in place, eventually the body struggles to keep up.

Then there are also the more unpredictable injuries. A player can hit a hidden root or a heavy divot and hurt their wrist, elbow or shoulder. We’ve had players tear calf muscles or Achilles tendons after slipping on hills. But generally, I’d say the biggest risk comes from repetition and volume rather than the sport itself.

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Is the growing emphasis on speed in golf contributing to those injuries?

PS: Absolutely. Everybody wants to hit the ball further now, but to create speed you also need the ability to control and decelerate that speed safely. That only comes from proper conditioning, training and understanding how the body works.

WW: To tolerate those forces, you need a certain level of physical robustness. If players don’t have that — or if they’re constantly chasing more speed — eventually tissue tolerance breaks down somewhere and that’s usually when injuries happen.

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So a large part of your work is injury prevention rather than simply treatment?

PS: Definitely. A huge part of what we do is education. We try to teach players good habits and help them understand that while manual therapy and treatment have their place, you can’t beat good athletic habits, sensible training and proper nutrition.

Those things are what keep players healthy and available to compete week after week.

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What recovery methods are players relying on most during tournaments?

WW: The biggest thing for us is what we call performance lifestyle planning. At the top of that is sleep. Everything is downstream from sleep. If players aren’t sleeping properly, injury risk goes up, illness risk goes up, fatigue increases and performance suffers. We spend a lot of time talking about sleep hygiene — keeping rooms cool and dark, avoiding screens and stimulants before bed and creating a proper environment for recovery.

Nutrition is another huge factor. One thing we often see during the season is players unintentionally losing weight because they underestimate how many calories they’re burning. If they lose muscle mass and strength across the season, injury risk increases and performance can drop.

Then there’s training itself. We want players following well-rounded strength and conditioning programmes that support what they’re trying to achieve physically.

One thing we always say is to avoid making dramatic changes during the season. Introducing too much novelty mid-season can create problems.

There’s also the mental side of tour life. It can be lonely and mentally draining, so having strong relationships with friends, coaches and family is incredibly important.

Finally, we encourage players to monitor how much golf they’re actually playing. Golfers often manage their own workloads and sometimes they’re not very good at recognising when they’re doing too much.

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Poora, you’ve been around the game for nearly two decades. How have you seen golfers change during that time?

PS: Massively. When I first came into golf, player support was incredibly basic. You’d have a treatment table in the locker room and maybe a few resistance bands.

I came from a high-performance athletics background where sports science and conditioning were already standard, so when I joined golf I was shocked by how little of that existed. A lot of it was cultural. Golf had this old-school mentality where people believed weights would make golfers slower and that players only needed to practise golf itself.

Over time, through the work of the European Tour Performance Institute and the support systems on the HotelPlanner Tour and DP World Tour, we’ve helped re-educate players and coaches about the athletic side of performance.

Now, players understand that if they want to compete consistently across six or seven events in a row, they need to treat themselves like elite athletes. I’m genuinely very proud of how far things have come.

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What separates the players who stay healthy all year from those who struggle physically?

PS: The players who stay healthy are usually the ones with the best habits and routines. Some younger players still come from environments where they’ve been told to just play golf and everything else will take care of itself. But once they experience life on tour, they realise very quickly that isn’t enough.

The standard on the HotelPlanner Tour and DP World Tour is incredibly high. If you can win on the HotelPlanner Tour, you’re good enough to compete at the very highest level. The players who succeed long-term are the ones who look at what elite players are doing and adopt those same professional habits around training, nutrition and recovery.

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You also seem to create a relaxed and supportive environment for players. How important is that?

PS: It’s a very conscious part of what we do because tour life can be lonely. We want players to feel comfortable coming into our space, whether that’s for treatment, recovery or simply to switch off mentally for a while. Sometimes a player just wants to sit in recovery boots, listen to music and relax. Sometimes they need somewhere quiet to sleep for an hour. It’s about creating an environment where players feel safe and supported.

WW: It becomes a kind of third space for players. They spend all day around competitors, either on the course or in the clubhouse, so having somewhere they can properly relax and let their guard down makes a huge difference.

Some players don’t even come in to train — they just want to sit down and talk. That in itself can be really valuable during a long season.

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Is it difficult stopping players from overtraining?

WW: It depends on the individual because golfers tend to be very process-driven people. A lot of them want to optimise everything — sleep, diet, routines, recovery — and because golf is such a technical and psychological sport, players can become very analytical about performance. We encourage them to take a balanced, holistic approach rather than becoming obsessed with any one method. But generally, if players overdo anything, it’s usually golf itself.

One of the biggest injury mechanisms in golf is simply too much golf. We rarely see injuries caused by sensible strength and conditioning work. It’s usually the repetitive volume of golf practice and competition that creates problems.

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How important is it for the two of you to work closely together?

WW: We work as part of a multi-disciplinary team, so we’re constantly referring players between each other. A player might come to Poora with an issue and then be referred to me because there are underlying strength or movement deficiencies that need addressing.

Likewise, if I feel something is more medical or rehab-focused and outside my expertise, I’ll refer the player back to Poora. It’s a very collaborative relationship.

PS: The medical team is involved as well. If we feel a player needs scans or medical assessment, we’ll bring the doctor in and make decisions together. The players are always looked after collectively.

WW: It also helps that me and Poora genuinely like each other. That makes the whole environment work better because there’s trust within the team.

PS: I trust Will completely and I know the players are in world-class hands with him.

That’s a huge part of building a successful multi-disciplinary team — making sure everyone is highly skilled, experienced and working together towards the same goal.

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Main Image: Harry Grimshaw

The post Behind the ropes with European Tour Performance Institute appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The symptoms: poor contact with the ball even when you’re consciously trying to hit it solid; struggling to swing the club through the impact zone without straightening up; and routinely pulling shots left of your target or slicing them right of it—or both.

If any of these describe the state of your game, stand with your back to a wall and take these three physical screening tests to see if you lack the muscle function necessary to hit great shots.

TEST NO. 1

Stand with your upper body against a wall and your feet angled about 12 inches from it. Make sure your pelvis is tucked under your torso. Extend one arm so it’s perpendicular to the wall, and raise it over your head without bending it. The goal is to touch the wall while maintaining the body’s other contact points. Repeat the test with the other arm.

IF YOU FAILED: The inverted triangular-shaped muscle of your upper back, known as the latissimus dorsi or “lat,” is too tight. This causes your swing to be short and narrow, resulting in thin and fat shots and/or slices. To improve mobility, lie on your side, leaning back slightly on a foam roller. Roll from hips to armpits for three minutes a few times a week. Also, stretch your upper-back muscles before you play.

TEST NO. 2

Stand against the wall just like you did in Test No. 1 and extend both arms at the same time, pressing the palms together. Raise both arms over your head. The goal is to touch the wall with your two thumbs without arching your lower back or losing any of the contact points created when you began the test.

IF YOU FAILED: The muscles around the thoracic spine (mid-back) aren’t functioning properly. This causes a loss of posture and limits your ability to rotate when you swing. Lie on a foam roller, and move it up and down your back. Stop in the middle and let your shoulders gently sink toward the floor while keeping your butt on the ground. Also, strengthen your oblique muscles with exercises like side planks and seated torso rotations.

TEST NO. 3

Stand with the majority of your body—from heels to head—against the wall. Bend one arm 90 degrees, and place the upper portion of the arm against the wall at shoulder height. Now raise the lower portion of the arm, maintaining the 90-degree angle. Your goal is to touch the wall with the back of your hand while keeping the bottom part of your back from arching or pressing into the wall.

IF YOU FAILED: Shoulder mobility is an issue for you, and this likely causes you to hit shots fat, thin or your path into the ball is noticeably out-to-in (slices/pulls). Work on stretching the pectoral muscles (chest) and exercises that improve the external rotation of the shoulder joint. Even repeating this test can improve mobility.

Main image: Mike Ehrmann

The post Can you swing like a scratch golfer? Take this three-part test to check appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

But Samuela still sensed she could help golfers swing the club better than ever, all based on her own experience in the game. As part of the wave of golfers whose interest in the sport picked up during the pandemic, the Italian-born Samuela noticed how often lessons with her instructor at Westchester (New York) Country Club referenced concepts within her area of expertise.

“He started talking to me about body swing connection and kinematic sequence,” she said of Westchester’s Gary Weir. “It was like we were speaking the same language. I think it catapulted me into the game maybe faster than it would have had I not had that interest.”

It’s not that Samuela was the first person to recognise the unique fitness demands of golf. The field has grown rapidly in recent years, with everyone from tour players, to recreational seniors recognising the importance of body functionality in the swing. But not everyone has a platform as massive as Peloton, which has expanded well beyond stationary bike classes to include hundreds of fitness classes with instructors like Samuela as stars.

The one thing Peloton had never done, however, is tailor a training program for a specific sport. As Samuela dug into her own game by designing golf-specific programs and even getting her golf fitness certification from the Titleist Performance Institute, she sensed an opportunity.

“I’ve been asking for a while to create a program like this, and I was just seeing such great results for myself,” she said. “I love coaching strength in general, but I think there’s something really special about coaching strength for athletes specifically and knowing you could get a result on the other side.”

The Strength for Golfers program features seven instalments meant for each day of a golfer’s week, with areas of focus including stability, explosive power and improved range of motion. Samuela says the sessions, ranging from 30 minutes of strength training classes to a 10-minute pre-round warmup, are designed for a broad cross-section of players (she is a mid-handicapper while her husband is closer to scratch). If she were working with a tour player, Samuela says the programs would look a little different.

“You have to be realistic about who is on the platform that would be interested in this,” she said. “Rory McIlroy doesn’t need my program, but a scratch golfer certainly can get a lot out of it. My husband has been taking my mobility class on repeat.”

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The culture of the PGA Tour—from the popularity of certain equipment to styles of swinging and instruction to the commitment of players to physical training—ultimately filters down through every competitive level. So a young player like Gordon Sargent (above) is already getting his body ready as much as he’s preparing his game for when he turns professional. It’s not like that’s something he’s going to build into during the first few years of his pro career.

For the last decade, every junior player coming into my academy in Birmingham has gotten regular physical assessments. Athletic development is a huge part of rounding somebody into a complete player and a complete person. Those assessments help a swing coach and a trainer work together to make sure a player’s body can support what a particular golf swing requires. Players play better faster, and they’re able to practice and compete with less chance of injury. With a stronger foundation of athleticism and fitness, a player who does get injured can recover more quickly and with less chance of compromise.

In recent years, the effectiveness of working with a player’s swing and body has been aided by the ability to measure, target and adjust in very specific ways. The fitness pioneers had to use trial and error to adapt athletic training to golf and, in Ben Hogan’s words, “dig it out of the dirt.” It was really a kind of brute force attack on fitness, if you will. Now, we can be much more precise about how players practice and train.

What does that look like for a tour player? Everyone has a particular functional movement pattern. The way you’re built determines things like how deep your arms can get behind you in the backswing. You can train a player’s swing to be sympathetic to their natural pattern, and you can train the body to manage or improve in an area where there might be a deficit. That’s why I spend a lot of time with a player’s trainer and the rest of his medical team, because they’re the ones who know what a player can and can’t do. It’s an orchestra of people helping the player produce the most speed and reliability he can and reduce the risk of injury.

Every tour player has a series of baseline stretches he uses to make sure his body is ready to play. So by the time he’s at the range, the engine is already warm. One of the best stretches any player can use to see immediate results is getting more range of motion from the big muscles in the lower body. Pull one knee up toward your lower torso and feel the stretch in your hamstrings and glutes as you balance on the other leg, then switch sides. Just getting those muscles stretching and firing will make you much more functional when you practice and play.

Main Image: Jared C. Tilton

The post Elite golfers are elite athletes. Here’s how they get that way. appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

 

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Get into an athletic stance with your feet slightly wider than shoulder width. Hinge at the hips to lower your torso so it’s parallel to the ground. Place your right elbow on your right inner thigh and brace your right fist against your left inner thigh. From there, extend your left arm and rotate your torso up toward the ceiling so your left arm passes your left hip on its way to pointing straight up.

Do one or two sets of these rotations, switch arm positions, and rotate for 10 more in the opposite direction.

“Because of the nature of the golf swing, it’s very common for golfers to be more restricted through their thoracic (mid) spine on one side more than the other, so you can always focus more time on the side that feels tighter,” Fleischer says.

You’ll feel a stretch in your hamstrings, too, which Fleischer says is key for taking pressure off of your lower back. This move also “improves your hip-hinge mechanics so you don’t put as much stress on your spine throughout the round,” she says.

Lastly, this stretch will make your thoracic spine more mobile. With the ability to rotate more, your lumbar (lower) spine won’t have to compensate as much, Fleischer says. If your lower back is working less in the golf swing, you’re going to experience less lower back discomfort.

You can do this stretch before or after your round—or both.

“This dynamic move is great for warm-ups to help get a bigger turn and can be done as a post-round stretch to help reset the body and improve symmetry,” she says.

Try it the next several times you play. The cure to your lower back pain could be as simple as incorporating this move into your routine.

Image: Jennifer Fleischer

The post Top trainer: Golfers experiencing lower-back pain need this stretch appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“Tree Pose is a balance pose. It can also help us build concentration, strengthen the hips, open the hips and strengthen the core,” McMillin says.

To do the pose, start by standing on your right leg and place your left foot on your right ankle. You can use a golf club to help you balance. Keep your left toes on the ground.

“This helps us get used to standing on one leg, finding a strong, stable foundation before we move further into the pose,” McMillin says.

For the next phase of the pose, feel like you’re pushing down through all parts of your right foot as you bring the left foot up to rest on your right calf. Keep your right knee flexed throughout this move.

“Keeping a bend in the standing leg makes sure the muscles in the standing leg are activated and you’re not locking out the knee joint,” McMillin says.

For some golfers, this is the right place to stop and hold the pose for a few breaths before switching sides.

But if you’re feeling good with your left foot at your right calf and think you can do more, McMillin says to engage your core as you slide your foot up to the right knee. If your hip flexibility allows it, you can take the pose a step farther and bring your foot up to your right inner thigh.

Hold for a few breaths and then switch sides.

Lauren McMillin, Golf Digest Certified Fitness Trainer, Tree Pose

As you build proficiency, you could be able to take the golf club you were using for balance, and lift it above your head, like McMillin is doing in the photo.

The balance, strength and concentration required to do Tree Pose mirrors what you need to remain in control throughout your golf swing. McMillin says to hold this pose for 30 second to one minute on each side and to do this five times per week. You’ll start to feel more stable in your golf swing.

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