Golf injuries: what the studies have found.

How often golfers are injured

Ilari Kuitunen and Ville Ponkilainen pooled seven observational studies in a 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis (Irish Journal of Medical Science). Across 269,754 exposures, where one exposure is an 18-hole round, they estimated 2.5 injuries per 1,000 rounds, which they describe as low. Professionals had a higher rate, 8.5 per 1,000 exposures, though that figure comes from a single study, against 1.3 for amateurs across five studies. The authors note that the evidence base is thin.

A 2023 review in the Aspetar Sports Medicine Journal by Paul Robinson, Christopher Dodson, Alexander Zickerman, Matthew Watson and Joshua Dines collects other estimates:

The same review notes the difference in workload: most professionals hit at least 200 balls a day, while only 19 percent of amateurs hit more than 200 a week. The 2018 International Consensus Statement on Golf and Health (Murray and colleagues) agreed that golf's yearly injury incidence is moderate compared with other sports, its risk per hour played is low, and serious injury is rare, though head injuries from balls or clubs can be serious.

The low back

Andrew McHardy, Henry Pollard and Kehui Luo surveyed 1,634 Australian amateur golfers (Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, 2007). About 17.6 percent had at least one golf injury in the previous year, and the lower back was the most common site, at about 25 percent of injuries. Among the findings:

• Golfers blamed a poor swing (46.9 percent) and overuse (24.5 percent) most often.
• The follow-through was the phase of the swing most often reported (41.6 percent).
• Most injuries (64.1 percent) came on gradually.
• 77.2 percent of those with a low back injury had injured their low back before.
• Age, sex and handicap were not significantly linked to low back injury, but golfers doing 0 to 1 hour of full-shot practice a week had lower odds of injury than those doing more.

A companion analysis of the same golfers (South African Journal of Sports Medicine, 2007) gave the injury sites as lower back 25.3 percent, elbow 15.3 percent and shoulder 9.4 percent. It found age group, warm-up status, conditioning habits, glove use and injuries from other sports significantly associated with injury, while the type of club shaft and shoe were not. The same authors' 2006 literature review in Sports Medicine, as summarised from its abstract, identifies the low back as the most common golf injury site, with overuse dominating among professionals and faulty technique among amateurs.

The "crunch factor": a disagreement

Robinson and colleagues (2023) cite Sugaya and colleagues (1997), who found 51 percent of lumbar injuries were on the right side and described a "crunch factor": the combination of sideways bending and rotation that stresses the lumbar discs. Cole and Grimshaw (Spine Journal, 2014) tested the idea with 3D motion analysis of 12 golfers with low back pain and 15 without. As summarised, the peak values and timing of the crunch factor did not differ significantly between the groups, and they concluded the measure is not sensitive enough to tell them apart.

Professionals: spine, hand and wrist

A 2019 systematic review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine by Paul Robinson, Iain Murray and colleagues screened 1,863 studies and included five. As summarised, four of them reported the lumbar spine as the most common injury site in professionals (22 to 34 percent), with the hand and wrist the next most common outside the spine (6 to 37 percent). The authors judged study quality relatively poor: no study met more than half of their quality criteria.

Robinson and colleagues' 2023 review adds detail on wrists. About two-thirds of wrist injuries are on the lead side. Most lead-wrist injuries in professionals are ulnar-sided, linked to repeated ulnar and radial deviation of the wrist, and de Quervain's tenosynovitis most often affects the lead wrist.

Bansal and colleagues (Journal of Hand Surgery American Volume, 2017) reviewed 81 patients treated by hook of hamate excision. Eight were golfers, and all eight golfers' injuries were in the non-dominant hand. Their median return to play was 6 weeks (range 1 to 36), and complications, mostly temporary ulnar nerve symptoms, occurred in 25 percent.

Elbow, shoulder and knee

Gosheger and colleagues (American Journal of Sports Medicine, 2003) studied 703 randomly selected golfers over two seasons. As summarised from the abstract, recreational golfers were most often injured in the elbow, then the back and shoulder, while professionals were injured more often, typically in the back, wrist and shoulder.

Robinson and colleagues (2023) note that lateral epicondylitis is seen more often in golfers than medial epicondylitis, despite the latter's "golfer's elbow" name. They list lead-side shoulder problems (acromioclavicular joint arthritis and posterior labral tears) and trail-side anterior instability, and cite Murray and colleagues (2023) as reporting knee injuries in 25 percent of amateurs. They also cite McCarroll and colleagues (1990), who surveyed 708 amateurs, for contributing factors including excessive play, poor swing mechanics and hitting the ground.

Children and safety

The 2018 consensus statement recommends supervising children around golf. Emergency department reports of children's head injuries from clubs and balls exist, but we could read them only in summary, so their figures are not repeated here. See the juniors and seniors page.

What the research suggests, and what it does not

The studies above describe patterns across groups of golfers. Several of them link injury to warm-up habits, conditioning, overuse and swing technique, which is one reason the fitness page covers warm-up research. None of them can tell you why you are in pain or what to do about it. That is a question for a doctor.