Ahead of the Turkish Airlines Open, Joost Luiten writes this week’s Player Blog, discussing the mental and physical challenges he faced this season in overcoming a wrist injury that saw him miss nearly six months of a season which began with a victory. From frustration to pain to determination, the Dutchman details the battle many players face when they are away from the game.
I make goals at the beginning of every year.This year was no different. My goal was The Ryder Cup.
Sadly, I never made it to September.
I started the season as I wanted. I knew I probably needed to win twice this year to make the team and after a lot of hard work in the off-season, I came out well and won in my fourth start of the year in Oman. With some big events coming in the middle of the summer, I felt I was on-course and in position to have a good, if not great, year and make the team. I had a lot of events laid out in front of me and if everything came together on the right week and at the right event, The Ryder Cup was a possibility for me.
I first felt the injury the week after I won in Oman.
I came back to Hollandand had a practice week at home. I was obviously excited by how I was playing and wanted to keep working hard on what worked in Oman, so I went immediately out to the range and got to work. I remember it was really cold. Freezing cold. It was minus eight or nine degrees celsius but I was determined to put the work in and laid out a bunch of balls on the range. Quickly I could feel something in my left wrist. It felt stiff and a little painful when I was warming up. I remember thinking it was just the cold weather and the change in temperature – that it was probably nothing.
Unfortunately it wasn’t nothing.
The next week I flew to Mexicofor the WGC-Mexico Championship and I was excited to tee it up in a big event, especially having won in my last start out in Oman. I thought the hot weather and change of climate would help the stiffness and I’d be fine. Warming up, I still had pain but still I thought it was nothing. The unique thing about WGC events is that everyone plays four rounds. There’s no cut. That’s usually a good thing but for me that week, it was probably a bad thing. I played four rounds with the pain in my wrist. I finished just inside the top 40 but I didn’t feel right.
Stupidly, I assumed it was just stiffnessfrom traveling or playing at altitude and I flew to India to play the following week.
I finished in the top ten but I could barely swing the club. Every shot on the range and on the course caused me pain. It was like someone was pushing a small knife into the back of my wrist and every time I set the club during my backswing, I could feel it. It’s amazing looking back that I was able to still play well. That course in India is one of the toughest we play all year and I was still able to compete, basically playing with one healthy wrist.
On the flight home from India, I told myself I needed to get it checked out and when I got home I went to see a doctor and told him about the pain I was having. We did an MRI scan but there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, he couldn’t see an obvious cause of the pain. His advice was to get an injection in the wrist to help ease the pain and take some time off. Not the advice you want to hear when you are a professional athlete in the middle of his season.
The next event on my schedule was the WGC-Dell Match Playin Texas. The top 64 players in the world, a huge event for world ranking points, a massive week for me in terms of The Ryder Cup and me trying to get back into the top 50. I tried everything I could to work out a way to play but after talking with my team, I knew it wasn’t going to be worth it. You want to be at your best those weeks and I wasn’t even at 50 percent. I had to withdraw from the field. I was gutted.
I sat at home and rested my wristand counted the days until I thought I could get back out and play. In late April, I said it was time to get back and I went to Morocco. The wrist felt fine and I was hitting the ball well. I played really solid all week and finishing tied ninth. My second straight top ten and everything seemed positive. I had missed some time but my game was still there and I still had a good chunk of the schedule ahead of me. Then I flew to China and the pain came back.
Whether it was the injection wearing off or the injury getting worse, I was gutted.
I tried to play at Wentworth but I knew this was serious. Every swing hurt. Instead of swinging normally, I was swinging the club in a way to limit the amount of pain I was going to feel during my swing. It’s tough to play well swinging like that. I could feel the pain starting in my wrists and wringing out through my fingers. I missed the cut by one shot and immediately flew back to Holland. This time I went to see a wrist specialist that had helped me with another, unrelated wrist injury I had in 2009. He did some deeper, tests and told me I had developed a bone growth in the back of my wrist.
Then came the six words that no golfer ever wants to hear.
“You are going to need surgery”
The first questioneveryone asks after that is “when will I be able to play again?”. The answer wasn’t good. I was done for three to four months. It was the eve of the summer stretch with some big events looming but I knew immediately, my season was over. I had to get this growth removed and I was going to be out for three to four months. The Ryder Cup was done. The Majors were done. Chances of playing at all again in 2018 were slim and I was facing an extended period out of the game. It was tough. Really tough.
One of the mentally challenging things about that time was having to give up control. As a golfer, we get lots of advice on how to swing, what shot to play, what to eat, how to work out, what events to play but ultimately it’s always done to us and everything is in your control. You are the boss and you dictate things, good or bad. With this, I had to trust the specialist and trust that the surgeon knew what he was doing. It sounds funny to say but as a professional athlete, it’s not easy to give up control like that.
The only thing that gave me hope was that we now knew what was wrong. Before, when doctors said they couldn’t see anything I began to question myself and I wasn’t ever sure if I was injured or not. Now, I knew. It was difficult to hear but in a way, it was a relief at the same time.
A couple of weeks after that chat with the specialist, I was checking in for surgery. In 2009, when I had wrist surgery I was out cold, this time I had only local anesthetic. I was awake as the procedure was going on. It was very strange. It only lasted 45 minutes or so but I didn’t like it. I told my surgeon if I ever get anything like this again, he can knock me out. I don’t really want to be a witness at my own surgery.
After the surgery, my wrist was in a cast for four weeks and I was sent home to rest. You might think the physical side of being out is tough, not being able to practice or hit shots or do some short game practice, but honestly the mental side was far tougher. It was July, it was the middle of the golf season, the middle of the summer and I was stuck at home with my arm in a cast and unable to do my job. Honestly, it sucked.
Watching golf on TV was painful. I didn’t watch much at all. Normally when I’m away from events, I’ll watch the guys and see who is doing well and keeping up with the latest tournament. When I was out, I barely watched a single shot.
The first couple of weeks are okay. You try and switch off and rest a little but gradually you begin to miss the adrenaline of playing inside-the-ropes and competing every week. I missed the nerves of a first tee shot or coming down the back-nine trying to mount a charge. There was nothing I could do to replicate it or experience it, I just had to wait.
Seeing The Ryder Cup on TV was particularly hard. Part of me really wanted to have it on but there was a small part of me that thought I could have been there. That was probably the toughest part of being out. What could have happened if I didn’t get hurt? Could I have won again? Could I have made that team? It was amazing what the guys did but I wasn’t able to watch much of it.
At one point when I was out, I got so bored I actually caddied in an event.
I have a good friend locally in Hollandand he is a pro and we saw each other at the golf course. He told me I had so much time on my hands that I should come caddie for him at an event in Germany. I said sure and I think he thought I was joking. I messaged him later that day and told him I wasn’t joking and we set it up. I was genuinely interested to see what it was like to caddie in an event. We drove to Germany and he made the cut and finished 25th or so and I really enjoyed it. And no, I didn’t charge him the usually caddie percentage. In fact, I actually paid for the hotel.
As for the rehab on my wrist, it took a while. I had the cast on for a month and then it was a case of slowing building back up to swinging again. Initially after the cast came off, I could only do some small wrist exercises for five to ten minutes at a time, then I would have to take a break. I would do that six or seven times a day, building the muscle and flexibility back to allow me to take the clubs out again.
After a couple of weeks I was able to puttand hit a few chips, then a few weeks later I was pitching and hitting shots around the green. All and all, it took about three or four months before I was back hitting full shots again, pain-free.
That’s the thing with injuries, as a player you always want to come back sooner. You hear someone say you’ll be out for four months, you think in your head three. You just assume you’ll be able to shorten the time you’re out but it’s so important to trust the doctors and trust your body and not rush. Once I was out of my cast, I would get to a point where I could hit a dozen chip shots, then the next day I would try and hit 14 or 15 and slowly build up. I know it was going to be slow and tedious but ultimately it would be worth it.
It was October when I was playing again at full speed- I played a round with my surgeon and we spoke about me playing competitively again. He was happy the wrist had healed correctly and said that if I could get through a normal day of a practice session as well as full round of golf, without pain, that he was happy for me to try it at an event. So I entered the Andalucia Masters at Valderrama, two weeks later. I played well there last year, finished runner-up to Sergio and Valderrama is a course I love. Having that date as something to work towards was huge for me.
I remember arriving in Spainand seeing all the guys on the range and in the clubhouse again. It was great. It felt like I hadn’t been away that long. The feelings all came rushing back and was nervous and excited to get going. The week was a strange one with some thunder storms and heavy rain that stopped play a few times, which made it difficult to get back into a rhythm but I didn’t care. The buzz of playing under pressure again was amazing.
I shot a final round 67 and finished 11th. I was back. No one will remember that week for my result but for me, it meant a lot.
So what next?
The season has just three weeks leftand while I’m still disappointed it hasn’t been the year I was hoping for, I still want to finish strong. I feel good, I think I’m playing good and I still have goals I want to achieve. The top 30 players in the Race to Dubai at the end of the season get entry into The Open next year and that is what I am aiming for. I have three good events with strong fields to get that done.
I’m confident with my swing and my healthand who knows, maybe that second win of the year could still happen?
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