Back Pain After Golf: It Is Not Age. It Is The System You Keep Repeating.
- Kay Wettasinghe
- Jun 16
- 7 min read
There is a specific kind of golfer I picture when I think about back pain after golf.
He is not lazy. He is not inactive. He has tried things. He has seen people. He has followed advice, done a few stretches, maybe booked a physio.
But somewhere in the last few months, a quieter thought has started creeping in.
Maybe I’m going to have to give up the game.
That thought is not really about the back. It is about the belief system underneath it. The belief that his body has turned on him. That he has run out of road. That this is just what happens now.
I hear some version of this on almost every call I take.
And I want to address it directly before we talk about anything else.
It is not age.
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The Penny Drops: Back Pain After Golf
I am 42 years old. I am more mobile, more flexible and stronger now than I was in my twenties.
That is not a boast. It is evidence.
Because I was not always. I had to build it. And the only difference between then and now is the system I use — not the number on my birthday cake.
Every time I get a new client onto their first session, the same thing happens. They come in somewhere between sceptical and defeated. They have usually tried “everything.” What they have not tried is something genuinely different.
We do the session.
They feel it.
And then they say it — every single time, without being prompted:
“It’s not age, is it.”
Not a question. A realisation.
You can see it happen. The energy shifts. Something in the face loosens. They stop sitting like someone waiting for bad news. They start moving like someone who just remembered their body is on their side.
That is the moment I work for.
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"Your body is not broken. It has adapted to the system you keep repeating.."
The golfer who almost quit
I am currently working with a client who came to me in serious pain.
Sharp pains. Multiple areas. A physio he had been seeing for a long time — a good friend of his — had tried everything in his toolkit.
When we first got on a call, he wanted to explain it all to me. Every symptom. Every label. Every thing he had been told.
I stopped him.
Not to be rude. But because I have learned that the more someone explains their pain history, the more they are living inside it. And a body stuck inside a pain story moves differently than a body that has been given permission to just move.
So I said: stop talking. Let’s just move.
He was resistant. His mindset was locked. Stubborn — in the way that pain makes people stubborn, because every time they have trusted their body, it has let them down.
But he did the movements.
And his body responded.
Six weeks in, the sharp pains have gone. He is playing multiple rounds of golf in a day. Before, he was scared to play a single round.
He is still a work in progress. But the direction has changed.
That is what happens when you change the system instead of chasing the symptom.
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Why your back hurts after golf
Golf does not usually create a brand-new problem out of nowhere.
It exposes the one your body has already been carrying.
You sit. You drive. You train in the same patterns. You stretch for five minutes before a round and hope that cancels out the rest of your week.
But what is five minutes compared with the hours your body has spent compressed, stiff, folded forwards — at a desk, in a car, repeating the same gym movements in the same comfortable range?
That ratio matters.
If you sit for most of the week, then ask your body to rotate powerfully for 18 holes, your lower back may end up doing the job your hips and mid-back should have shared.
That is where the trouble starts.
This is why lower back pain after golf often has less to do with one bad swing and more to do with what your body has been repeating all week.
Your back is the messenger, not the villain
When I watch a golfer move, I am not just looking at the swing. I am looking at flow.
Some bodies move like one connected system. Others move like a tin man — top, middle, bottom, one piece at a time.
The golfer may be strong. He may train hard. But the body cannot express that power cleanly because the movement is restricted. The hips are not rotating properly. The thoracic spine is not contributing. The lower back starts doing everyone else’s job.
He shortens the swing without realising it. Protects the shot. Stops going after the ball. The pain appears earlier and earlier in the round.
By the time his back hurts after 18 holes, the body has been compensating from the first tee.
That is why back pain after playing golf is feedback. It is not just soreness. It is your body showing you where the system is failing.
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The problem with “just stretch it”
A lot of golfers think back pain after golf needs one perfect stretch.
It does not.
If your body is compressed, poorly aligned, and weak in the muscles it needs to support rotation, stretching before golf will not change the whole system. You might feel temporarily looser. But unless your body learns how to hold better posture, create space, and use the right muscles in the right pattern, the pain will keep coming back.
These golfers are not lazy. They are disciplined. They are often already training hard. They are just using the wrong system.
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Three things I actually look at
When I work with a golfer in pain, I look at three things.
First: create space. Pain often comes with compression. When the body collapses into poor posture, the joints, spine and hips lose room to move. For golfers, this often shows up around the lower back, hips and pelvis. Sometimes it feels like a deep, jammed pressure. Sometimes it travels into the glute or down the leg, because the sciatic nerve runs through that area. Either way, the body is telling you there is not enough space, support or freedom in the system. Decompression helps. But it is step one, not the solution.
Second: correct posture. If your posture keeps returning to the same collapsed position, your pain cycle will keep repeating. Hands-on treatment can create space and calm symptoms. But if nobody teaches your body how to hold that space, load differently, and move with better alignment, you are renting relief. You will be back at step one next week.
Third: turn weak muscles into usable strength. Most golfers I speak to already train. Deadlifts, squats, core work. On paper it looks healthy. But golf does not happen with two feet evenly planted under a barbell. Golf demands rotation, balance, timing, coordination, and the ability to move into ranges your gym programme has never touched. If your training only strengthens the patterns you already use, it will not fix the patterns your golf swing actually needs.
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Why the pain keeps coming back after treatment
This is the difference between decompression and correction.
Decompression gives the body space. Correction teaches the body how to keep it.
If someone loosens your back, massages your hips, or stretches your hamstrings, you may feel better for a while. But if your posture, loading pattern and daily habits stay exactly the same, the body will return to the same position.
Then the same pain comes back.
That is not bad luck. That is physics.
And if this has been happening for months, or even years, the question is not whether another quick fix will help for a few days.
The question is whether your body has actually learned a different way to move.
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The mindset is the missing piece
Here is the thing nobody says out loud.
Back pain after golf is partly physical. But the golfer who has been in pain for months — who has tried things, been told things, been given labels — has also built a fearful relationship with his own body.
He second-guesses every swing. He plays cautious. He stops letting himself go after the ball.
And caution, held long enough, becomes identity.
That is the expensive part. Not the physio bill. Not the lost yards. The slow shrinking of what he believes his body can do.
Is your mindset old? Or is it open?
Because I have seen 60-year-olds move like athletes and 35-year-olds move like they have given up. The difference is not the body. It is the belief about what the body is allowed to do.
When the system changes and the pain starts to lift, something else happens too. The client gets brighter. More energetic. He texts to say he won. He is told his swing is the most beautiful in the group.
He shines again.
That is what is really at stake when someone says they are thinking about giving up golf.
Not the game. Themselves.
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What to do next
Back pain after golf is not something to manage until you stop enjoying the game.
It is feedback. Your body is telling you the current system is not working.
And systems can be changed.
Not with one stretch. Not with another year of the same thing. Not by deciding it is just age.
Your body is not broken. It has adapted to a system you keep repeating.
Give it a different system and watch what happens.
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If your back is affecting your game — shortening your swing, ruining the next morning, making you wonder whether golf is still worth it — book a VIP consultation. I’ll assess your posture, movement and pain pattern and give you a clear next step.
About Kay
Kay Wettasinghe is a Yoga Therapist, Golf Mobility Coach and Corporate Wellbeing Specialist
Originally from a corporate background, Kay now specialises in helping golfers improve rotation, reduce back pain after golf and build strength through short, practical mobility programmes. Her approach combines active stretching, posture correction and movement awareness to help golfers move more efficiently both on and off the course.
Through Yoga by Kay, she works with golfers across the UK online and in person, helping them play with more freedom, confidence and consistency.
Curious what your body is trying to tell you?
If you're struggling with back pain after golf, poor rotation or simply feel like your swing has become harder than it should be, a Golf Mobility Assessment is the best place to start.
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"Your body is not broken. It has adapted to the system you keep repeating.."
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