Right, here’s what I’ve been chewing over this week. Miyu Yamashita defended her title in Kuala Lumpur, a small study suggests hip mobility and clubhead speed don’t behave the same way in men and women, and a survey of 439 pro golfers asks whether being flexible really protects your spine. There are three more studies in the Research corner too, including one for our over-80s. Let’s get into it.
The three talking points
On tour
How do you defend a title? Miyu Yamashita made it look routine
Japan’s Miyu Yamashita successfully defended her LPGA Maybank Championship at Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club, finishing on 22 under (266) and two shots clear of China’s Yan Liu. Liu fired a 63 on Saturday to get herself into the hunt, but Yamashita closed with a 68, five birdies and a single bogey at the 9th.
She’s held the lead from Friday’s second round all the way to the finish. Last year she won this event in a three-way playoff, so this one was much less stressful to watch. It’s her fifth career LPGA title and her second this season, after a nine-shot win at the CPKC Women’s Open in August. Australia’s Robyn Choi finished fifth on 17 under, and Thai amateur Marisa Tojai tied for third with a closing 67.
What it means for you: leading for three days is its own kind of pressure, and it’s easy to start playing not to lose. Yamashita kept making birdies on Sunday, which is the habit worth stealing for the Saturday comp. I can’t tell you from the scorecard what was going on in her head, but a simple, repeatable pre-shot routine is what most of us lose first when we’re ahead.
Source: ESPN (AP report); Malay Mail.
Performance
Is more hip mobility always better for clubhead speed?
Researchers measured the resting position and range of motion of the hips and shoulders in 24 elite golfers (12 men and 12 women), then compared those numbers with clubhead speed. In the men, more hip range of motion went with a faster club (a correlation of 0.71). In the women it went the other way: more hip range of motion went with a slower club (-0.58).
The authors read that as the women needing more stiffness through the left hip to get speed, while the men depended on more mobility there. They also found the men had a greater resting internal rotation position of the left hip. They conclude that screening and conditioning for elite golfers should be sex-specific.
What it means for you: “get more flexible” isn’t a blanket answer. What a hip needs depends on the golfer, which is why I’d rather measure you than hand you a stretch off the internet. Treat this as an interesting lead, not a rule. It’s 24 people, it shows an association rather than cause, and the mobility was measured with a simple movement-screen style test. Bigger studies need to confirm it.
Source: Hsu et al., Scientific Reports (2026), cross-sectional study. Read the paper.
Health
Does being flexible protect a golfer’s spine?
Researchers surveyed 439 active professional golfers in South Korea about spine injuries, their stretching habits and a few simple flexibility tests (a floor touch, a shoulder reach and a thumb-to-forearm test). Overall, 33.7% had a spinal injury at some point: 15.5% in the neck and 21.9% in the thoracolumbar or lumbar spine (the mid and lower back).
Of the three tests, only the shoulder reach separated injured from uninjured golfers (p = 0.010). A “fair” grade on it was linked to lower odds of a mid or lower back injury (odds ratio 0.29, 95% confidence interval 0.14 to 0.62). The floor touch test didn’t tell them apart (p = 0.274). Golfers who’d had a back injury had also changed their warm-up and their swing afterwards.
What it means for you: touching your toes isn’t a good test of whether your back is safe, and upper back and shoulder mobility may matter more than hamstring length. The caveats are real: it’s a snapshot in time, so it can’t tell us whether flexibility protects the spine or whether injured golfers just changed how they move. I also can’t tell from the abstract exactly what group the “fair” grade is compared with, so I’d want to see the full paper before leaning on that number.
Source: Kim et al., Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research (2025), nationwide cross-sectional study. Read the paper.
Research corner
Three more 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.
Ten weeks of strength and power work: big changes in the gym, patchier on the course. Eleven university golfers (6 men and 5 women) did six weeks of strength training followed by four weeks of power training, twice a week, and were tested before and after. In the men, none of the changes reached statistical significance, though several were large in size: bench press force at 100 milliseconds (effect size 1.13), carry distance (0.98) and ball speed (0.82). In the women, every bench press force measure improved significantly (effect sizes 1.54 to 3.79) and carry distance rose by a large but non-significant amount (0.84). It’s 11 people with no control group, so I wouldn’t promise a number of yards. My take: two sessions a week is a realistic dose for a busy golfer, and fast upper-body force looks worth training, particularly for women.
Source: Bishop et al., Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (2026). Read the paper.
Golfers over 80 keep their strength, but not their dynamic balance. This study tested strength and balance in 38 recreational golfers aged over 80 and compared them with 62 golfers and 17 non-golfers aged 65 to 79. The over-80 golfers had similar grip strength, single-leg balance and leg power to the younger non-golfers. But their reach distances on the Y balance test were lower than both younger groups (p less than 0.001 against the non-golfers), and they also scored lower than the younger golfers on single-leg stance time, leg power and left-hand grip. The big caveat is that it’s a snapshot, so we can’t say golf preserved the strength; it may be that stronger people simply keep playing. My take: lovely news for our senior golfers, but the dynamic balance result is a nudge to add some balance work on top of the golf.
Source: Wilson et al., Journal of Aging and Physical Activity (2025). Read the paper.
Show, don’t tell: video instructions help golfers do their exercises properly. Eighteen golfers (12 women and 6 men, average age 62) were randomly split into three groups to learn an injury prevention program from instruction cards only, videos only, or both. Their 108 exercise attempts were scored from video. The card-only group performed 73.7% of exercises as intended, against 88.6% for video only and 86.3% for cards plus video, and both video groups were significantly better than cards alone. It’s a small pilot, and it measured how well people did the exercises, not whether anyone got fewer injuries. My take: this backs up what we do in the clinic. A coach demonstrating a movement, or a clear video, beats a printout every time.
Source: Gladdines et al., BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine (2024). Read the paper.
Also from the weekend
Novak runs away in Mexico (result to confirm). Andrew Novak led the PGA Tour’s VidantaWorld Mexico Open by six shots after 54 holes, on 23 under after rounds of 67, 61 and 62, with Matthieu Pavon second and Doug Ghim third. He was chasing his first individual PGA Tour win, with his only title so far being the 2025 Zurich Classic with Ben Griffin. I couldn’t confirm the final-round result when I wrote this, so check the leaderboard.
Bermuda has its winner. Last week I mentioned Sunday’s final round was blown out. Austin Smotherman went on to beat Seamus Power on the third hole of a sudden-death playoff on Monday morning, after the two finished the shortened 54 holes tied on 16 under. It’s his second PGA Tour title this month, after the Bank of Utah Championship.
On the radar
- This week: the LPGA’s Asian swing wraps up with the Toto Japan Classic at Omitama, outside Tokyo. The DP World Tour’s Abu Dhabi Championship is listed for 5 to 8 November.
- Just finished: the HotelPlanner Tour Grand Final in Mallorca, where the top 15 in the Race to Mallorca earn DP World Tour cards. PGA Tour Champions was also at the Simmons Bank Championship (Darren Fichardt led after 36 holes), but I couldn’t confirm the result.
- Coming up: the Charles Schwab Cup Championship finishes on 15 November, and the Australian Open is at Kingston Heath from 3 to 6 December.
This is general information, not advice for your specific back, shoulder, knee or hip. If something’s bugging you, give me a shout before you self-diagnose from a blog post.
Kris
Sources
- Maybank Championship report, ESPN (AP)
- Maybank Championship report, Malay Mail
- Mexico Open round 3 recap, PGA Tour
- Bermuda Championship playoff, Golf.com
- HotelPlanner Tour Grand Final, RTE
- PGA Tour Champions leaderboard, ESPN
- Sex differences in hip and shoulder mobility in elite golfers, Scientific Reports
- Flexibility and spine injuries in professional golfers, Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research
- Strength and conditioning in university golfers, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
- Strength and balance in golfers over 80, Journal of Aging and Physical Activity
- Exercise instruction and fidelity in golfers, BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine
