Right, here’s what I’ve been chewing over this week. A 63-year-old won on tour, two bits of research landed that I think any golfer with a sore back or a short drive should know about, and Rory had a week he’d probably like to forget. Let’s get into it.
The three talking points
On tour
Can you still win on tour at 63? Vijay Singh just did
Vijay Singh shot 69 in all three rounds to win the SAS Championship on the PGA Tour Champions at 9 under, finishing two shots clear of Ernie Els. At 63 years and almost 8 months, he’s the seventh-oldest winner in the history of that tour, and it’s his first win on it since 2023.
What caught my eye wasn’t the trophy, it was the backstory. Earlier this year he spoke about a back injury from 2025 that was so severe he said he couldn’t walk. Eighteen months or so later he’s holding off Ernie Els.
What it means for you: a bad back year doesn’t have to be the end of your golf. I’m not going to pretend one 63-year-old’s comeback is a treatment plan (everyone’s back is different), but it’s a good reminder that getting the right help early matters far more than most golfers think.
Source: PGA Tour Champions SAS Championship wrap-up; ESPN (leaderboard and report); Augusta Chronicle via AOL (Singh on his back injury).
Performance
Does lifting heavy actually make you hit it further?
Researchers took 40 elite golfers from the Danish national squad and had most of them do four strength sessions a week for 16 weeks, building from moderate loads up to heavy ones. A smaller group carried on with their usual training. The lifters got faster with the driver and the 6-iron, hit it further, and improved their maximal strength, jump power and rotational power. The group that carried on as normal didn’t change.
What it means for you: if you want more speed, getting stronger is one of the most reliable ways to do it, and I’d take it over another bucket of range balls. Now, these were elite players training four times a week under supervision, so most members don’t need to copy that. The principle is what matters: progressive strength work, done well, built around what your body can handle.
Source: BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine (2026), via the SPONET record. This is a 2026 paper rather than breaking news, but it’s the best recent evidence I’ve found on the question.
Health
What should you actually do for a sore back if you play golf?
This one’s a randomised trial of 30 amateur golfers with non-specific low back pain. One group did trunk stabilisation exercises combined with lower-body strength training. The other did golf swing exercises and stretching. The combined strength group improved more on pain, disability and balance. Both groups picked up some driver distance and ball speed.
What it means for you: for a lot of golfers, a stronger trunk and stronger legs beat stretching alone. The honest caveat is that it was only 30 people over a short period, so treat it as a useful pointer, not the final word. And “non-specific back pain” covers a lot of ground, which is why a proper assessment beats guessing.
Source: Journal of Back and Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation (2026, issue 3), via EBSCO.
Research corner
A few newer papers that caught my eye this week. I read the abstracts so you don’t have to, and I’ll tell you how much weight I’d put on each one.
Does training actually add distance? The big review says yes, modestly. A 2026 systematic review pooled 33 studies and nearly 800 golfers. In the controlled trials, physical training added about 1 m/s of clubhead speed (roughly 2 mph) and around 9 to 10 metres of carry and total distance. That’s a real gain, but not a miracle. The authors rate the certainty of the evidence as low, because many of the underlying studies are small. My take: it backs up what we see in the clinic. Structured strength and power work helps, so treat it as part of your golf preparation rather than an optional extra.
Source: Johansen et al., Sports Medicine (2026). Read the paper.
A pre-round routine that cut back pain flare-ups in teenage golfers. In a double-blind trial, 45 high-school golfers did either a targeted low back warm-up program or a sham routine before playing for 12 weeks. The number of golfers who got back pain wasn’t significantly different between groups (5 versus 8), but the number of back pain episodes was far lower in the warm-up group (16 versus 100). So it didn’t stop everyone getting sore, but it made flare-ups much less frequent. It’s a young group and a small trial, but warming up properly before you swing is cheap, and this is a decent reason to do it.
Source: Hamada et al., Translational Sports Medicine (2025). Read the paper.
Your feet matter more than you think for speed. A lab study of 30 golfers (15 pros and 15 high-level amateurs) measured how they pushed into the ground during the swing. How they used the ground, together with how well force travelled up through the body, accounted for about 75% of the differences in clubhead speed between swings. The pros averaged around 111 mph against about 92 mph for the amateurs. Two caveats. It’s a small observational study, so it shows an association, not cause and effect. And it was done in a lab with maximal swings, not on the course. Still, it’s a nice reminder that speed starts from the ground up, which is why we look at your lower body in a SwingLAB assessment.
Source: Rachnavy et al., Frontiers in Sports and Active Living (2026). Read the paper.
Also from the weekend
Ruoning Yin wins in Shanghai. Yin made a four-foot birdie on the 16th to break a back-nine tie with Hye-Jin Choi and win the Buick LPGA Shanghai by one shot at 11 under. Choi had led after every round and was chasing her first LPGA win. It’s Yin’s seventh LPGA title and her second in Shanghai.
Chacarra takes India, Rory has a quiet one. Eugenio Chacarra won the DP World India Championship by two shots at 21 under, his third win of 2026, and moved to the top of the Race to Dubai. Rory McIlroy finished tied for 42nd, and AP reported he didn’t use his driver all week. I’d love to know how that decision came about.
On the radar
- This week: the DP World Tour heads to Korea for the Genesis Championship, and the LPGA Tour is also in Korea for the BMW Ladies Championship (22 to 25 October).
- Coming up: the Australian Open is at Kingston Heath from 3 to 6 December, with Rory McIlroy due to play.
This is general information, not advice for your specific back, shoulder or hip. If something’s bugging you, give me a shout before you self-diagnose from a blog post.
Kris
Sources
- Buick LPGA Shanghai report, ESPN
- Buick LPGA Shanghai prize money, Golf Channel
- DP World India Championship, PGA Tour (AP)
- DP World India Championship, Sky Sports
- PGA Tour Champions SAS Championship, ESPN
- Vijay Singh on his Masters history and back injury, Augusta Chronicle via AOL
- Strength training in elite golfers, BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine
- Trunk stabilisation and strength in golfers with low back pain, EBSCO
- Australian Open 2026 at Kingston Heath, Premier of Victoria
