Roy has just returned from 2 weeks in the Middle East where he was working as part of the European Tour Performance Institute (ETPI) on the DP World Tour. He has been part of the team for 16 years, travelling around Europe & the Middle East working with some of the best golfers in the World. Here he gives an insight into life on tour.
Typically, a golf tournament on the DP World and USPGA tour starts on the Thursday and finishes on the Sunday, but our work starts from the Tuesday morning. Our role is quite broad, covering the assessment and treatment of injuries, assisting players with their warmup and recovery after play and also assisting in their S&C programmes. (Within the team, we have Osteopaths Physios, a Chiropractor and Sports massage therapists, as well as Doctors, Nutritionists and Strength and Conditioning Coaches.) For more information please click the link below
The most common injury that we see is low back pain followed by upper limb pain such as wrist injuries and shoulder pain. Outside of musculoskeletal complaints, the area of mental health is a very big focus within the medical unit on tour with progressively increasing provisions and expertise for the players to use to help them cope with the ups and downs of life as a professional golfer. For more information on golf injures, click the link below
A typical day for us starts 90 mins before the first tee time on tournament days, so with sunset being about 5.30pm, in order to get all the players round in time first tee was 6.30am so painfully early alarm clock for us set at 3.45am!!!
After a wake up coffee (or 2) the prep started for the players, helping them with their warm up and carrying on treatment programmes for the players in order to get them to the first tee as pain free as possible. This may be hands on treatment or taking the players into the gym area.
Post round provisions as part of their recovery can include massage and stretching, but also Ice baths and recovery compression boots.
