To Practice or To Play: Is Golf Participation Associated With An Increased Risk of Injury?

Abstract

Golf is a popular sport worldwide, however recent studies have shown that there is a high incidence of injury associated with the sport. There are numerous countermeasures suggested to protect golfers from injury, however few of these are based on any sound data. PURPOSE: To investigate the participation habits of a cohort of golfers and determine whether hours of play and/or practice were associated with injury risk. METHODS: Golfers aged 18 years and above with a registered golf handicap completed a questionnaire on their golfing habits and 12-month injury status. RESULTS: This study consisted of 1170 golfers (714 women, 456 men) with a median age of 51 years, and median handicap of 15. Almost one-third (28.8%) of the golfers reported sustaining an injury in the previous 12-months, with the lower back being the most commonly injured region (36.2%). There was a significant association between reporting an injury in the previous 12-months and the number of hours of golf practice/week (χ22= 11.232, p = 0.004). Age, hours of play/week, hours of practice/week, and total golf participation hours/week were all significant, independent predictors of reporting an injury in the previous 12-months. The Hosmer and Lemeshow test indicated an acceptable goodness of fit of the model (p = 0.887). Odds ratio (OR) analysis showed that golfers who accumulated more hours of play or practice were 3.89 and 2.53 times more likely to report sustaining a golfing injury in the previous 12-months (p=0.043 and p<0.001, respectively). Whereas golfers who accumulated less than eight, or between eight and 11 hours of golf participation/week were 0.157, and 0.183, times less likely to report an injury compared to those who accumulated more than 18 hours/week (p = 0.009 and p = 0.010, respectively). Finally, older golfers were less likely to report sustaining an injury than younger golfers (OR: 0.574, p = 0.049). CONCLUSION: This study is the first to establish an association between golf participation and injury. Before suggesting that golfers limit their amount of golf participation, it would be better to investigate other avenues of injury prevention to ensure that participation in physical activity is not viewed as harmful.