Has an injury helped your game?

[Pstar1978]

Moderators, if this is in the wrong place please move it. So on September 27th I broke my ankle at work by losing my balace on a ladder about 10 feet up. So after 4 weeks of being in a cast and not being able to drive(considered automatically at fault because I was considered impared in NYS), I'm in physical therapy until I get reevaulated. With physial therapy there's a emphasis on training/healing the ankle stabilizers in my left foot. All I can think about is this is really going to help my game by improving my balance. Has anyone gone through an injury like this and after rehabbing, you're game has improved?

[bscinstnct]

Not ankle but hurt my back, smoothed my tempo, especially with driver.

 

Then back got better and started ripping away again.

 

Thanks for reminding me ; )

[golfandfishing]

Got in a bar fight one night in college and hit a guy square in the forehead. Shot 87 the next day basically swinging one handed. So......no.

[billyhandsomeface]

I started playing golf after blowing out my right knee. Caught the bug bad. Then I blew out my left knee and still wanted to play. The only thing I could do was practice around the green. This was the turning point in my game. I was able to develop half shots and the ability to get up and down with multiple clubs. Once I could use my lower body again I noticed a big difference in my short game. My long game still sucked (still sucks) though!

[bscinstnct]

So,

 

Punch somebody then jump out a 3rd story window.

 

This should move to the instruction forum!

[Kaysquare]

After having a total knee replacement in my right knee a few years ago, I subconsciously stayed on my left side a lot more (babying the right knee) and got more distance & played better after that surgery.

[bigred90gt]

I had back surgery in 2012 and went from a 3 index before (actually shot a 75 the day before surgery while not being able to stand up straight) to struggling to break 90 and losing 30-40 yards on my drives and 2-3 clubs distance on my irons when I came back. My game has never been the same. I've never got all of my distance back and I don't hit the ball nearly as well as I used to. The second back surgery in 2014 certainly didn't help matters either.

[Imp]

In Nov 2014, I had a benign tumor "little potato" (2cm x 4cm x 6cm) removed. To get to the tumor, they had to remove my tailbone (think about your tailbone and vertebrae it's attached to... and from the back go inwards. That's where it was, on the other side of it) and a bit of tissue that had been attached to/surrounded it (could have been born with it, don't really know).

 

I finished up the '14 year pre surgery, around a 14 index. '15 golf season was getting used to it, the difference (and there was one, I could feel it). Had a new swing appear, felt like I could actually turn a little better (or normally, because there used to be this "thightness" down there before). Finished around 13. This year, pretty much fully recovered, new swing working, used to the little potato missing. Finished with a 10.0. Drives more confident and repeatable. More turn, more accurate and repeatable turn.

 

That's me anyways.

 

--kC

[BC33]

Had a right orbital fracture when I was 16 years old. If I get fatigued or put my head a t a certain angle, I have double vision. Didn't start golfing until I was 23. If I raise my chin and swing I can't see the ball. I have to keep my head down in order to see the ball. This has made my swing steep and I never lift my head.

[1ironcharlie]

Started golf at 23 and sliced like a chef at benihana. (I blame baseball) through work work and more work, turned it into a beautiful, reliable fade, twice. I took a 5ish year break from golf when my kiddo was born, and when I returned I was starting from scratch, but again began turning slice into fade. My game returned quickly, and surpassed previous performance, but I knew I couldn't work the ball at all and was in awe of guys who could. Standing on the range and watching a guy hit a draw was like watching Black magic. One day a buddy of mine, (pga apprentice) walks behind me at the range and says, "alright partner, draw" I told him buddy, even if you had a gun to my head, I couldn't draw it! Year after this, we move house and my black and tan coonhound says something really offensive to my daughter's golden retriever... About this dog, he is amazingly sweet, gentle, loyal, kinda stupid, and a ton of fun. His name's Simba, but we call him pancakes, it fits his dopey face. My coonhound, on the other hand, is all business, and a great Hunter, strong, nimble, athletic, and brave. He likes exactly one person, me. My family he protects and tolerates cause that's his job, but he's generally a mean cus. Three times him and pancakes have gotten into it, and the doofy one walks away with out a scratch, mine barely walks. Just gets his a** handed to him. Sorry, just setting the stage, I guess.i should also mention that I'm due to start an out of town golf job two weeks from us moving. Anywho, I hear them going at it, and just like I have my whole life, I moved to break em up, not being stupid, but I can usually get them apart fairly easily. Well not this time. Pancakes tries to bite my dogs neck, misses, and clamps down on my right hand, hard. I've been stabbed, I've fallen three stories before, and I've never had a panic inducing injury on this scale. There was blood spray on my shed wall, and I was pouring it out of my hand. I could see ligament and bone in the puncture wound whenever we would momentarily wash the blood away. On the ride to the ER, two things are running through my head, I'm the world's biggest idiot for letting myself get bitten, and I'm never going to play golf again. This was shattering to me. I may not be as good as your average WRXer but I can hold my own, and considering I started as an adult , have actively played for a fairly short amount of time, and am self taught, I have always been very proud of my aptitude and the seriously hard work I've put in. I have aspirations in golf, not tour, just to be a pga pro. Teach lessons, care for a club, grow the game. Also, for reasons I will not get into here, golf has provided me a much needed respite from some other things in my life, and I didn't want to contemplate a life without it. I am not ashamed to admit, at 31 years old, sitting in my dad's car with a bloody tea towel around my hand, I began to weep. Hospital cleans me up, gives me some pain meds, antibiotics, and sends me to an orthopedist, who tells me I'll heal, but there's no way of knowing the extent of the damage to the nerves. My hand looks like a Halloween prop, and I can barely wiggle two of my fingers. A couple weeks pass, and due to some apparently freakish genetics, it heals in half the time the doc said. He says it looks ok, and if I want, start hitting easy shots and see. Well a week of half shots and everything feels ok, numbness in ring and pinky, but no real pain. So clubs and me to the range, stretching, half shots for warm up, and finally hit a full shot.I look up to see the ball gently curving from right to left. Picture perfect draw. Next one, same next, same and on and on. Needless to say I'm thrilled, and soon take my new found stock shot to the course, to quicky realize that a draw is still unnatural for me. I stink up the place. But after a while I got used to the draw, began to feel the difference between my shot pre-mangling and post, and begin to be able to work the ball either way. This increased awareness of my swing and soon I began learning how to better and more consistently flight the ball, high, low, the penetrating wind ball, and the one high as pikes peak that comes down like a tomahawk missile. I think in the end it's was because I was forced to rely on my left hand more than ever before, and that led my brain to process different signals from the nerves, and process them differently, to treat my left hand like a partner as opposed to something to hold the bottom of my bat/club, or stick my ball glove onto. This increased partnership between right and left also made my strike more efficient, giving me greater power with the same or less effort. I had to totally redo my yardage books, and I didn't mind a bit. Now instead of a 7 from 150, it was a smooth 8 or firm 9. Better balance between my hands helped my short game, distance control and putting. It made me a far more complete player, I shaved 4 strokes off my handicap within months of recovery, and finally became of those guys who can bend it around either side of a tree or dogleg , or hold a ball up against the wind.

 

I'm sorry to prattle on, I'm very long winded, but it's kind of a unique happening, I think, and definitely one i wouldnt believe if it hadn't happened to me. I'm sure there's one million and one other ways to learn the same thing, but none of those ways ever clicked with me, really, and this one did. Increased distance, increased accuracy, better putting, more versatile shot options, finer control, and of course, lower scores, all because of freaking Pancakes. I am going to get him such a big bone for Christmas :)