Its great to be back swinging the club again after an injury.

[rogerw]

I'm sure others have also had to go through something similar to this, but I can say it feels great to be able to swing a club again after an injury. Today was the first time I tried swinging a club since Feb. of 2012 and I can't express in words how good it felt to be able to do so again. I somehow pinched a nerve in my upper back, not really sure how, and then aggravated it playing 18 holes about four days later in Feb. of 2012 during an unusually warm weekend in PA. By aggravating I mean I noticed a slight pain in my shoulder while swinging but nothing that I couldn't deal with at the time. The next day I had pain radiating down my left arm that was so servere I was concerned I had a blood clot or something similar. Went to my G.P. and he had me go to physical therapy for about two months after determining it wasn't something more. Two months of therapy reduced the pain to the point where I could function and think again, but certainly was not gone. That didn't occur for at least another two to three months afterwards. By far some of the most extreme pain I've ever experienced and to be honest I really didn't think I would be able to swing a club again. At its worst, the pain felt exactly like hitting one's funny bone on the elbow, not just a little where you feel a tingle, but where there is a lot of pain and you lose your breath. I had that feeling continually for three days. So today it was so beautiful here and I walked downstairs to the basement and saw my bag sitting there. I said to myself I need to try this again just to see if I can play, or if I'm done. So I went to the range and hit a bucket, very cautiously. I was obviously rusty and it took about 5-10 swings to begin to hit things close to normal again. Amazingly enough I didn't really have any pain and the bonus was I still hit a lot of really nice 5 yard draws, which became my normal shot shape before the injury, all the way down to my 3 iron. Don't get me wrong there were some real clunkers in there as well, but I honestly don't care at this point, I'm just happy to be able to play again. So my goal this season isn't to improve my handicap as much as it is just to be able to play golf again and enjoy my time on the course.