Billy Horschel Shuts Down TGL Injury Link

Billy Horschel moved quickly on social media to shut down talk that a recent run of injuries to star PGA Tour players could be linked to their participation in TGL.

Collin Morikawa was forced out of The Players Championship after just one hole on Thursday after hurting his back on his second tee.

Following on from Rory McIlroy also hurting his back and the likes of Justin Thomas and Horschel himself being injured, the question has been asked about whether TGL could play a part.

It's a question that was emphatically answered by Horschel as a hard 'no' but is there any weight at all in the theory?

Ryan French of famed X account @acaseofthegolf1 asked the question that Horschel answered.

"Please stop! TGL had nothing to do with my injury," Horschel wrote. "And I would suspect nothing to do with the other guys."

While others on social media suggested the mechanics of playing TGL off unusual surfaces could be a reason, French went to expand that it was more the extra travel and the emphasis on higher swing speeds in the simulator league that could be a factor.

So could there be a wider point here? As while the individual injuries certainly aren't linked with purely playing TGL there is the broader aspect of the scheduling and extra travel possibly introducing a risk factor more generally.

TGL is played early in the season when the PGA Tour is out on the West Coast so it can often mean long flights for players finishing tournaments and then heading directly to SoFi Center in Florida.

As Max Homa has himself admitted, the players can swing harder at the ball in TGL chasing speed and distance on the simulator - while Homa along with Tom Kim played a TGL match straight after finishing a round at the Cognizant Classic recently.

All modern PGA Tour pros are on top of their fitness game these days so there's no doubt they warm up and cool down properly, but could playing 18 holes on the PGA Tour then heading off to go and swing harder in a TGL match open up the possibility of injury?

What's to blame for recent back injuries?

It has to be made clear that the current injuries mentioned have no link with just playing TGL, and the counter argument of course is a lot of the players live nearby in Florida so actually will have extra time in their own homes and crucially their own beds - which would no doubt help with back problems.

Golf Digest spoke to Golf Channel's chief medical officer Ara Suppiah about the subject and he agreed that "there’s no direct correlation there" between these back and muscle injuries and TGL.

The injuries are an issue though, and instead of them being a consequence of playing on a simulator or chasing extra speed, they're more likely fatigue injuries purely based on the amount of golf played in total and the athletic swings now prominant with modern players.

"What I do think that is probably unspoken, is that additional load is a factor," Appiah added to Golf Digest.

"The TGL is played in Florida. Some of these guys fly across country from the West Coast to the East Coast to play an event for two days, and then off they go again.

"Their bodies are fatigued, they’re hitting more balls and then they injure themselves not necessarily because they’re hitting off mats - not necessarily, because they’re trying to chase speed on a simulator or anything like that - it’s just the extra load, of, hitting balls in any situation."

So we certainly can't link recent injuries to playing TGL, but it's clear modern Tour pros need to take extra care with playing so much golf and swinging at such high speeds, as even the fittest and most diligent can suffer.