A Study of Sports Injury and Sports Rehabilitation in Elite Golf Players

Abstract

Golf has been considered as less tough sports than other sports, thus golf players pay less attention on their sports injuries and rehabilitation but golf players still experience many sports injuries. The objective of this study was to investigate the status of sports injury and rehabilitation in elite golf players. 102 golf players were recruited and they completed validated questionnaires. Overall, greater than 80% of players experienced sports injury and 65% performed rehabilitation practice. However, still 70% of players experienced re‐injury. No difference in sports injury status according to sex was observed. Both regular member and associate member indicated that enough warm‐up is the primary prevention method to prevent sports injury but associate members significantly participated in rehabilitation practice than regular members. Elite golf players whose exercise career is greater than 10 years presented significantly higher experience in sports injury than whose career less than 10 years and they experienced injuries in waist, wrist, and elbow. In conclusion, lots of elite golf players experience sports injuries and present differences in status of sports injury and rehabilitation practice according to their affiliation and exercise career. Currently, elite golf players are less considering their sports injuries and they are not participating rehabilitation practice appropriately resulting in experiencing re‐injury. Therefore, further study is needed to build appropriate practice program and to develop systematic sports rehabilitation program for elite golf players.