The sport of golf always amazes me. I can’t think of any other human endeavour where we will sit in an office all week, get in a car and drive to a venue and then swing a club as hard and fast as we can, often without warmup.
Golf is a forceful game. An amateur male golfer generates a club head speed of around 153kph (pro golfers can be over 200kmh!). That rotation goes directly through the body to not only generate the swing but has to slow it down at the other end.
So it’s no great surprise to me that here in New Zealand more injuries come from golf than tennis, skateboarding, skiing or martial arts. (ACC Sport and recreation injury statistics 2025).
Over 80% of our trunk rotation comes from our mid back (thoracic spine)). This area can only rotate when it is straight (extended) yet our modern lives are spent bent forward (flexed) at desks, over phones, in cars, on office chairs and sofas. And then we try and play golf.
An optimal thoracic curve is between 20-29’. This biomechanically enables rotation of the spine- if rotation is restricted there has to be compensation elsewhere which leads directly to reduced performance, inaccuracy, and injury- for example, over-rotating the lower back due to thoracic stiffness increases the shear forces on the lumbar discs; arm dominant movement reduces accuracy and club face control; a stiff mid-back reduces power and distance off the tee. The list goes on but the bottom line is it directly affects your golf.
Yet in a 2025 study of healthy South African male golfers there was an average thoracic curve of 33’ with a corresponding loss of rotation to between 30- 38’. This is significant because the modern golf swing requires 50-70’ of trunk rotation so is absolutely not sufficient for peak golf performance or injury prevention. This study demonstrates that what is currently normative in golfers is not at all optimal.
Key message: the modern world is flexing our spines. Golf requires us to extend our spines so we can rotate. If you want to hit further or straighter or just want to avoid injury you need to make changes NOW.
References:
ACC statistics - https://www.acc.co.nz/newsroom/media-resources/sport-and-recreation-injury-statistics/
Bloemhof, B. E., Volkwyn, C.-A., & Ferreira, S. (2025). Establishing normative flexibility values for the thoracic spine of competitive male South African golfers. South African Journal of Sports Medicine, 37(1). https://doi.org/10.17159/2078-516X/2025/v37i1a21108