South Florida Baptist Hospital is offering golfers a chance to increase their game and reduce the risk of injury.
The hospital’s rehabilitation services will now be offering Titleist Performance Institute golf assessments for both amateur and professional golfers. The appointments aim to analyze how golfers perform by assessing movements and targeting areas of the body relative to their performance.
Giancarlos Pizzini became a physical therapist at SFBH a little over a year ago. Prior to that he had been working in the Fort Lauderdale area where he was certified in the Titleist Performance Institute assessment training. He realized it would be a great asset for the SFBH and its rehabilitation center to provide this service to the golfers in the community.
“When I was looking around the area I realized there wasn’t anything like this and there were definitely plenty of golfers and golf courses around here,” Pizzini said. “It was a good idea for us to explore this as an option and provide this service for the community.”
Titleist Performance Institute was created by Titleist, a manufacturer of golf equipment. The company partnered with clinicians to create an institute that would benefit both professional and amateur golfers.
According to the British Journal of Sports Medicine, playing golf has positive health effects on the
cardiovascular system, respiratory system, metabolic health, cancer risk and musculoskeletal health. However, amateur golfers annually have an incidence of injury between 15.8% and 40.9% with lifetime injury incidence between 25.2% and 67.4%, according to a study published in the journal.
Getting injured can take a golfer out of the game for months, if not permanently, and SFBH aims to reduce the risk of those injuries ever happening.
The assessment determines which areas of the body are limited and what each individual golfer’s deficiencies are. Pizzini records the person’s swing on a driver and an iron. He then uses a slow motion application to take a closer look and connects the body’s movement to the effectiveness of the swing.
“Golf is a unilateral exercise,” Pizzini said. “It’s something that is done repetitively and you have to create a lot of high rotational forces in order to create a good golf swing. Most golfers that are out there want to hit it longer and they want to hit it straighter so they put their bodies into a repetitive demand that could potentially cause injury.”
Pizzini said the actual injury usually depends on what each golfer’s body limitations are. The average Joe who goes out on the weekends to play eight or nine holes has different restraints than a professional golfer would and the assessments are designed to perfectly fit each individual client.
“Some people are able to kind of quickly adapt, just making a couple of quick changes to their swing, but other people really take a little bit more fine tuning and a little bit more time to make that happen,” Pizzini said.
If, during the assessment, the golfer reports they feel any pain or symptoms that may warrant calling in another health care professional, the therapist can make a recommendation for physical therapy, which is also offered on site.
Pizzini said the ultimate goal of the assessment is to help improve each golfer’s game and reduce the risk of injury on the green.
“I would really like the average golfer out there to really just evaluate their golf game,” Pizzini said. “If they’re playing well and they’re hitting the ball well and they feel good about their score, then by all means keep doing what you’re doing. But if you feel like there’s an aspect of your game that needs to be improved or if you’ve had issues with your body in the past in relation to your golf game, come see us and we’ll be more than happy to help you and to help your game.”
Assessments are between 45 minutes and an hour long. If interested, call SFBH’s rehabilitation center at 813-707-9362 to make an appointment.