This simple swing move will protect your back (and not cost you yards)

This is the final installment in a three-part Bamberger Briefly series that explores different aspects of a phrase no golfer wants to say but most golfers eventually will: Can’t play today — my back went out. This series culls nuggets and insights from a recent GOLF.com interview with Dr. Tom LaFountain, PGA Tour director of chiropractic services, who over the past 27 and counting years has seen some of the most famous backs in golf history up close and personal.

Part I: Exploding Purses, Exploding Backs | Part II: JT and the Bad Back Band

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From age 35 on, humans, on average, lose 1 percent of their flexibility every year, says Dr. Tom LaFountain, the PGA Tour’s director of chiropractic services. That’s true if you’re Tommy Fleetwood, who is 35, or Tommy “Two Gloves” Gainey who turned 35 in 2010, the year he won three times on what was then called the Nationwide Tour. Gainey, who is now 50, has kept himself flexible enough to become a successful player on the Champions tour. A guess is that Fleetwood will be back in greater Birkdale, England, by the time he hits the half-century mark.

LaFountain knows the true dynamics of his relationships with the PGA Tour players who come to see him and his colleagues: They’re not looking for career-longevity advice. They’re looking for something that will let them swing pain-free now.

For the rest of us, LaFountain has some practical and simple advice, particularly for golfers on the other side of 35: Let your front heel come up at the top of your backswing. Ben Hogan did and so did Jack Nicklaus. John Daly and Phil Mickelson, the same. It’s the very thing Brandel Chamblee has been preaching for a half-decade now. For years, in the pre-Tiger era, golfers were given a power front-heel image that allowed for a longer, looser swing, creating more speed on the downswing, while taking pressure off the back.

The image comes from the era when golf shoes still had traditional spikes, and this was the image: At the top of the swing, the front heel was marginally off the ground. There were now, at the top of your backswing, four little holes in the ground from where your spikes had been. After getting your hands as high as they can go, start your downswing by driving your front heel down, so that the spikes return whence they came, filling those little holes again.

“You can’t talk to Tour players about anything like that,” LaFountain said. “They have whole teams devoted to their swing mechanics. But I work with a lot of elite amateurs, junior golfers and very good club players. And if they have back issues, I try that out on them and they always report that lifting the heel eases pressure on the back and doesn’t result in any loss of distance.”

In addition to that, LaFountain offers this advice: Go on the internet and look for workout programs devoted to improving flexibility and core strength. He is a fan of the different programs offered by TPI, the Titleist Performance Institute, but he’s not pushing those programs on anyone in particular because what works for one person might not work for another.

“Really, there are so many good ones,” he said. “You try one and if you like it, if you’re getting benefit from it, stay with it, and if you’re not, try something else. There’s no one size fits all.”

At some point in your reading, you’re going to encounter the phrase thoracic strength. Just another way of saying, “The back’s good.” For Tiger Woods, Justin Thomas, Tom LaFountain or any golfer reading this: It’s a worthy goal.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com