There are moments in life when circumstances, those that Ortega y Gasset constantly reminded us of, force you to stop. In professional sports – and we all know golf is one of them at the Olympic level – as in life, these unforeseen pauses are a much tougher test than any competition because it’s not about training strength, power, or technique, but the ability to accept, adapt, and return. Being on the sidelines doesn’t mean staying still; it means diligently working on one of the most invisible aspects of performance: resilience.
At the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, a disc protrusion prevented Viktor Hovland from competing against English. Leaving aside the controversy about the envelope that benched the Georgia player without injury – saving a few packs of gum along the way – it’s obvious that watching from the sidelines wasn’t the dream experience for the Norwegian on a Sunday of head-to-head showdown, just as it wasn’t for Jon Rahm missing the US Open 2024 due to a left foot injury.
In Jon’s case, it took two, three, four, five, six weeks for his complete recovery, whereas the Norwegian took a week and a half to recover – thanks to the powerful genetic heritage of his Viking ancestors – although we all know that in 2024 he was out of competition for several months, and while some causes were known, including wrist problems or kicking the corner of the bed, not all reasons were publicly revealed. Some pessimists might dare to say that it’s evident something more structural might be affecting Hovland and sending warning signals; I prefer to believe the worst is over…
Unfortunately, he’s not the only one; any elite athlete’s training subjects the body to extreme stresses that, in some cases, take a toll. We all remember the magical cures on the field that Marnus Marais performed on Scheffler‘s neck when playing holes 14 and 16 of the second round of the Players 2024, or the Samaritan intervention by Álvaro Zerolo on Dan Brown at the Open de España when he was competing for victory, or even DeChambeau himself when, leading the US Open 2024, he suffered hip discomfort and the tournament rules allowed two in-situ treatments of those five minutes where life is eternal.
They are not spared either. The all-terrain Charley Hull admitted she had been somewhat negligent in the weeks leading up to the The ANNKA driven by Gainbridge 2024 and needed hip treatment mid-round. Despite or thanks to it, she signed an outstanding -6 that helped her finish tied for second place, not to mention the ankle injury that didn’t prevent her from winning the Kroguer Queen City Championship in September 2025.
In all these cases, good physiotherapy sessions were enough to heal them and allow them to finish the round – even successfully. But the prognosis isn’t always so favourable. At the other end, threatening permanent or chronic injuries and/or illnesses can force a golfer to stop their activity completely. Some illustrious names can help us understand to what extent an injury, even if fortuitous, can mark a career. Ben Hogan himself declared that, although after his severe car accident in 1949, he managed to win the US Open 1950, he never felt the same but completely collapsed physically and emotionally.
Hogan spent 59 days (and surely the 500 nights of Sabina) hospitalized, barely able to move with multiple fractures and the circulation in his legs so compromised it nearly cost him his life. Doctors said he would never walk without pain again, and some even doubted he would walk at all. However, Hogan, from his hospital bed, among bandages, traction devices, and the compassionate gaze of his inseparable Valerie, began to visualize the swing he would one day make. Every breath hurt, but his mind was already training. After that fateful head-on collision with a bus, Ben Hogan not only had to rebuild his body and swing – to make it more compact and precise – but his ability to trust himself. He told the media that his was an exhausted body, with altered reflexes and a mind overwhelmed by fear and uncertainty.
His example starkly summarizes what many athletes feel when a serious injury or illness paralyzes them, and it’s that lack of alignment between the mind wanting to return and the body seemingly not responding as before. The miracle of Merion, as Hogan’s victory has been dubbed, barely 16 months after his particular ordeal, is the symbol of something much greater than golf and is the determination and human will to continue. Years later, when asked how he endured so much pain, Hogan summed it up with the same philosophy that guided his swing, “The secret is in the dirt,” the secret is to keep hitting, to keep working, even if it hurts…
Perhaps Hogan or even Tiger’s story is the mirror many players look into when facing the upheaval of a significant illness or injury. Their stories not only have the necessary point of inspiring optimism that can help sew identity when it seems to unravel, but they remind us that, at the end of the day, a golfer is not just a golfer but human beings capable of rediscovering themselves beyond their performance.
Tiger, until his redemption victory at the Masters de Augusta 2019 – his fifteenth major – suffered multiple serious injuries that led to five knee surgeries and four back surgeries. After his also severe car accident, we all hoped that, once again, the body would obey his iron determination and that the champion’s indomitable spirit would prevail over the aftermath, or perhaps, simply, see him as if he were made of the same liquid metal as the T-1000 android from the Terminator movie, capable of melting into himself and returning harder, colder, and more precise than before. On October 11, we were abruptly awakened from that childish dream when it was announced he had undergone lumbar disc replacement surgery. Tiger is a clear example of someone who has learned to live with pain and adversity, knows what’s coming, and I’m convinced, and I’ll bet my left hand again, that he won’t give up in that intimate battle that can be the struggle between hope and realism.
The reappearance after a time that could almost be considered fallow, if fortunate enough to arrive, usually (or should) have a component of happiness for being able to walk and compete without pain regardless of the result. And if not, dear reader, delve into the archives and retrieve the statements of José María Olazábal when he returned at the Dubai Desert Classic in late February 1997, after 18 months without competing due to a complicated rheumatoid arthritis.
There are other players who don’t make headlines but embody better than anyone the value of not giving up. Casey Martin, another fighter forged at Stanford, was born with a vascular disease that made walking difficult, and he litigated up to the Supreme Court for his right to compete with a golf cart. Now, without a leg, he has reinvented himself and is a coach at the University of Oregon. His perseverance is not just about insisting but adapting and continuing to pursue a goal, even if it’s radically different from what he imagined when he started.
There’s also someone who carries resilience in the ties of her ponytails, like Stacy Lewis, with severe and limiting scoliosis since childhood, who grew up tamed by an orthopedic brace meant to straighten her and could only remove it to train, underwent complicated surgery, and has a track record that demonstrates that willpower and perseverance can lead to success in the form of two majors, 13 victories on the LPGA, and two more than decent captaincies of the Solheim in 2023 and 2024.
Stacy, whom I will miss greatly now that she has announced her retirement at the end of 2025, understood that even if the body curves, the soul can remain upright, and destiny can be straightened. Perhaps, and there’s the lesson for all of us who have ever felt the weight of pain or faltered, in golf or outside of it, acceptance is the silent act of getting up again, adjusting the glove, breathing, and trying again, even if in a different way, simply because life itself continues to give us a mulligan every day, which is much better than the medical exemptions of the major tours.
I think of some who are now recovering away from the applause, practising in front of the mirror of doubt, and, between infiltrations and heroic physio sessions, walk this fine line between prudence and hope, like Fátima Fernandez Cano, Álvaro Quirós, Nelly Korda, Will Zalatoris, or Andrew “Beef” Johnson – about to return at the BMW Australian PGA Championship – and also many others without headlines or records, who fight to see the ball fly again, hopefully, they come to know that while they heal, they also teach us, like Garci, how to start over.
