Mind over muscle matter

DUBLIN, Ohio – To find the Buckeye State’s epicenter of artisanal ice cream and Wendy’s hamburgers, fly to Columbus and drive north. It is here that the PGA TOUR will be anchored through Sunday, and it was here that fitness-and-nutrition minded Patrick Rodgers began his work week with resistance bands and barbells, lunges and squats, and his trainer Troy Van Biezen overseeing all of it at the gym at Muirfield Village on Tuesday morning. Jordan Spieth, going through his paces nearby, stopped occasionally to grab a new barbell, mindful to duck his head so as not to hinder a CBS camera crew filming the action. Ollie Schniederjans, Jason Dufner, Kevin Kisner were there working out, too, making the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide of a piece with the rest of the PGA TOUR. While others pounded golf balls, grooved their putting strokes and charted the course outside in the sun, some of the most important work was happening behind closed doors and amongst mirrored walls. “Most of us are taking fitness pretty seriously these days,â€� said Rodgers, who has embraced functional training largely to prevent repetitive-use injuries, particularly in his back. “It’s funny how it correlates to some of the most successful players.â€� (Rodgers nodded at Kisner and Spieth, who finished 1 and T2, respectively, at last week’s DEAN & DELUCA Invitational.) Jack Nicklaus II quietly pedaled a stationary bike nearby. Players bantered about who had or hadn’t picked up the check at dinner the previous evening, and the upcoming NBA Finals. “It’s hard out here to hit all the balls and practice the putting,â€� said Van Biezen, a Canadian who lives in Dallas, and whose lengthy client list also includes Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas and the Dallas Stars hockey team, among others. “You want to make sure what you do in the gym is productive and not counterproductive. “He’s got a lot of energy,â€� Van Biezen added, nodding at Rodgers, who wore leggings under his shorts, a yellow shirt and a backward baseball cap. “So we really pushed him today.â€� Talk to Van Biezen and others and they cite improved strength and flexibility, but it’s not long before they mention the real goal of all that stretching and sweating: preventing injuries. “Well, I had back issues, so the gym is pretty crucial to me,â€� said Kisner. “Trying to keep everything moving, loose. Especially after a win and a couple cocktails, it helps to sweat it out. “Fitness is a huge part of it,â€� Kisner added, turning serious. “It’s a grind to play 30 weeks a year, 35 weeks a year. What most people don’t understand is how grinding the travel is. The golf is difficult but [so is] the flying and the toting of bags, carrying the families, loading the car seats and everything else.â€� THE GENERATIONAL DIVIDE This week’s Memorial boasts 10 of the top 10 players in the current FedExCup standings, but tournament host Jack Nicklaus, in his long press conference Tuesday, expressed a modicum of disappointment over the absence of four-time major winner Rory McIlroy. The two have struck up a friendship in recent years, and McIlroy called Nicklaus last week to say he would regrettably be withdrawing from the Memorial with a lingering back/rib injury. Nicklaus said he understood, but the subject of injuries was still on his mind. “We played through it,â€� he said of his generation of golfers, adding that they didn’t get injured as much in the first place. Why not? Because they played other sports, which “develop your body better, and it wards off injury betterâ€� than just playing golf and doing golf-specific exercises, Nicklaus said. It sounded plausible—until someone brought up Gary Player. “He kept very supple,â€� Nicklaus said. “Look at him today. He’s still supple. He never built himself to be muscular. He built himself to be strong.â€� There may not be as much of a generation gap as Nicklaus thinks, because that’s what many of today’s players are doing, too. Rodgers is 6 feet, 2 inches tall and 180 pounds, and to look at him you wouldn’t know how much time he spends in the gym. You wouldn’t know he started lifting weights when he was in the seventh grade at Avon Middle School, on the west side of Indianapolis, or that he has transformed his body by adhering especially closely to his fitness regimen over the last six-plus months. He’s no cartoon superhero. If he were a baseball player, he’d be Pittsburgh Pirates star Barry Bonds, not San Francisco Giants star Barry Bonds.     “The biggest thing is preventing injury,â€� says Rodgers, who at 110th in the FedExCup points standings is looking to jump-start his season at the Memorial. “If you don’t do anything, your hips get tight, your butt gets tight, your posture gets sloppy, you lose mobility in your shoulders. It just happens over time if you don’t take care of yourself. I’m more flexible than I’ve been, I’m stronger than I’ve been. I’ve learned more. I’m always learning more. “The interesting thing is I’ve probably been as disciplined and diligent as I’ve ever been for the last six or seven months, and I’ve gained no weight. It’s just I’ve gotten rid of fat. I’ve leaned out and strengthened up quite a bit. I’ve changed the composition of my body.â€� This week marks the 28th PGA TOUR event of the 44-week season. It’s a long road, and some would even call it a grind. Where would Rodgers be if he didn’t go to the gym every morning? Where would he be if he did none of his daily exercises at all? “I would be hurting and aching in a lot of different areas,â€� he said. “I would have lost a lot of weight. I would be weak.â€� THE BRAIN GAME Rodgers has many interests. He played the Big Three sports as a kid, and attended last weekend’s Indianapolis 500. He is also interested in exercise science, which was one of the reasons why he elected to go to Stanford, where he tied Tiger Woods’ record for career wins (11) and set the mark for low career scoring average (70.32). Those gaudy marks notwithstanding, Rodgers remains most passionate about what he learned on campus. “One of the reasons I chose Stanford was I felt like they had an unbelievable fitness program there—some good minds in their sports performance,â€� he said. “I loved going there. I felt like it was such a good place to learn. I wish I could go back and start school all over again.â€� A three-time first-team All-American, Rodgers won all the major awards (Hogan, Nicklaus, Haskins) but also developed some tightness in his spine. So when he turned pro his agent Brad Buffoni, who also represents Zach Johnson, set him up with Van Biezen. “Zach had nothing but good things to say about Troy,â€� Rodgers said. “At the time, I was struggling with some mid-back issues, which made me uneasy heading into a pro career, knowing my quantity of play was only going to go up a little bit. So just the manual therapy every day, his expertise, knowing my body, taking care of myself, has been huge.â€� Meanwhile, Rodgers himself has not gotten huge, which could do more harm than good. “You’ve really got to adapt, day to day,â€� Van Biezen said. “Injury prevention is the number one priority. When he came to me he was having some back injuries. Once we take care of that side of it we address the performance side of it. What I notice is people losing the flexibility in their hips, and losing the flexibility in their mid-back. That’s where a lot of the rotation has to occur in the golf swing. If you lose that, a lot of rotation now occurs in the lower back. Well, the lumbar spine is not made for rotation, but a lot of rotation is going in there, so that’s where it’s getting overworked and that’s why a lot of guys have back pain. “Keep them flexible, keep them stable.â€� In his press conference Tuesday, Nicklaus said he didn’t have a trainer, an entourage or “somebody to cut my toenails in the morning.â€� His audience laughed, but golf is a team sport now, and both of those words are important—the “teamâ€� because of experts like Van Biezen, and the “sportâ€� because of on-site gyms like the one at Muirfield Village, not to mention the fact that the game is now ruled by arguably its best all-around athlete, Dustin Johnson. Supple and lean, the FedExCup and Official World Golf Ranking leader will never be mistaken for muscle-bound Dwayne (the Rock) Johnson of the movies. Nor will Rodgers, Spieth or the others. Their work between the mirrored walls lets them keep shining on smaller screens on the long, televised grind of the TOUR, which alone is more than enough to be pumped about.     

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