It’s tough to get an injury when you’re a PGA Tour player. While you heal, or hopefully heal, the rest of the golf establishment keeps going. Passes you by. Perhaps stepping on you gently with SoftSpikes as they reach higher while you’re mired in limbo.
Last year’s poster child for injury and subsequent return was Scottie Scheffler, who was unmercifully attacked by a wine glass he and his wife were using to cut out ravioli bits. It was a holiday, and he didn’t want to trust his hand to just anybody. So, they stopped the bleeding and cooking and started making calls, finally locating a doctor they trusted and getting Scheffler to him.
It took him more than a month to heal. There were stitches. There was swelling. The whole package of what you don’t want to happen to your hand if you play golf. The cooking “incident” occurred in December, near Christmas, and his first start back was the very last day of January. He was lucky to be back that soon.
However, Scheffler didn’t find the winner’s circle again until May, unusual for someone of his talent. His probable reason: he couldn’t practice as much. Finally, he was victorious at his hometown event, the CJ Cup Byron Nelson.
Then he exploded, winning the PGA Championship, the Memorial, the British Open, the BMW, and Procore. He looked exhausted at that point, but still had a Ryder Cup in front of him.
This year, he’s back to some kind of form, with a victory already at the American Express, but nothing since then. However, he’s stopped playing bad first rounds, which was a new trend that he developed after the Amex. Nobody needs bad first rounds.
Xander Schauffele had perhaps the strangest injury. After winning two majors, the PGA and the British Open, he gave himself an intercostal strain and a small rib cartilage tear. (I asked him to point to where it was so we could all understand.) The pain point was up and under his rib cage, it seemed.
He recovered, though, and now he’s a two-time major champ. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. He happens to have a great, sarcastic sense of humor which I enjoy, I don’t know about you. Now he’s back and contending at the Arnold Palmer.
Rickie Fowler, after winning The Players and four other tournaments, developed a left shoulder injury. He had chronic bursitis, inflammation, and SLAP tear, which are injuries to the labrum at the top of the shoulder where the biceps tendon attaches. Any shoulder injury is tough on golfers.
Fowler is now on the leaderboard alone in sixth place at Bay Hill, just ahead of Schauffele and right behind Ludvig Aberg.
Aberg was progressing smoothly with a PGA Tour victory at the RSM to his credit. Then, while working out, he tore his meniscus. That, folks, is cartilage inside the knee. He was not quite the same for months, even though it was supposedly “healed.” Sometimes it takes a while to prove to yourself that the injury is “fixed.”
In his case, you’d think he should have been convinced after winning the Genesis Invitational in the winter of 2025, but he kept catching this and that illness and such. He’s finally healthy, it seems, and he’s tied for third at the Arnold Palmer. But everybody’s five or six back of Daniel Berger.
Berger was a promising young player until his back went out, and he didn’t come back for nearly 20 months. It was a “bulge” in a disc in his lower back. He returned to playing and then, in the weirdest golf injury, broke his ring finger. It was in a splint for three months, and sometimes, when he played after that, he thought he was breaking it again. Just the body fooling with him. It was fine. He’s now at the top of the leaderboard at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Go figure.
And finally, Bud Cauley, a promising young player, was involved in an auto accident that nearly took his life. His prize for being in the car as a passenger was a collapsed lung, five or six broken ribs, and a fractured lower left leg. The number of broken ribs varies depending on who mentions it.
Cauley is currently on the leaderboard at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in a tie for ninth place alongside five others, including Rory McIlroy. Unfortunately, he’s nine back of Daniel Berger, who refuses to give up the lead. After what he’s been through, can you blame him?
So, when your favorite player seems to disappear for a while, it might not be bad golf. It might be lingering issues from an injury.