Scottish golf has been hit two untimely injuries both in the professional and amateur game.
With the Home of Golf nation still on a high after Robert MacIntyre’s stunning Masters debut performance there is news fellow Tartan pro Marc Warren could be now side-lined for a few months with a major back issue.
In the amateur ranks, ultra-talented Sandy Scott has been forced to withdraw from next month’s Walker Cup showdown against the US due to a wrist injury.
Warren, 40, has been experiencing shooting pains in his lower back and admits in struggling at times to walk since being forced to withdraw early last month post the opening round of the Qatar Masters.
Marc Warren ends a long victory wait to capture the 2020 Austrian Open
The injury has also meant Warren withdrawing from today’s (THU) start to his defence of the Austrian Open and in the bigger picture looking sadly to sit out the next few months in what is his 16th full season on the European Tour.
Warren said: I’ve tried to play and rest and play and rest and so on. But, to be honest, for six to eight months I’ve not practised anywhere near the level I should be to play my best or anywhere near it.
“Within that time, I had some good finishes, but I’ve got a protruding disc – it’s the S5 L1 vertebrae – which is then irritating the sciatic nerve down my right leg. It can be painful, it can be sore but, once it started doing that, it was shooting pains down my leg and I was struggling to walk as everything seized up.
“I’m going to tournaments – Abu Dhabi was one – where I’ve not hit a ball at home all winter from the previous tournament in Dubai, so that was four weeks.
“I’m was struggling to walk, limping around the golf course, especially Friday and Saturday because I had to play a lot of holes because of a fog delay.
“In between rounds, I put a degree of loft on my driver just because I couldn’t hit it hard enough to get any flight on it. Fortunately, I putted well that week and had a good finish”.
After missing the halfway cut in the Saudi Invitational Warren returned home to Glasgow where an MRI revealed the extent of his injury but with treatment not to begin till mid-March, and having had nearly a month off, he returned to the Middle East and the Qatar Masters.
He said: “I had an MRI after Saudi and that’s when we really found out what it was. I knew rehab wasn’t starting until after Qatar, so I tried to have one last week to see out in Qatar but, after two or three weeks of not hitting any golf balls, I was winging it, really.
“I said to Calum, my caddie, walking down the first hole in Qatar, I had never felt so unprepared for a golf tournament in my life. Even down to how far I was hitting the ball, I didn’t really have an idea, it was a total guess.
“I’m pretty much seeing a physio at Hampden every day at the moment. It’s a case of doing exercises to try and progress but, at the same time, it’s a bit trial and error because I’ve not really hit a golf ball since Qatar.
“Hopefully next week I can start doing some slow-motion shots, but it’s a case of waiting and seeing. I’m targeting the Betfred British Masters (at The Belfry in a month’s time), but I think that might be a bit of a push.”
Though Warren will be in good hands as overseeing his recovery work in coming weeks will be Steve McGregor, who works closely with Lee Westwood.
Warren said: “Steve’s over in America just now, so we had a Zoom call with him the day after the Austrian event was announced and I asked if there was any chance we could try and move it along for that.
“But he basically said there was absolutely no chance. After that, the reality of not being able to go and defend left me pretty flat for a couple of days.
“But, if I had gone this week and it set me back to where I was a month or six weeks ago, I would be missing a lot of tournaments in the middle of the season or even beyond that.
“The goal before I play again is to play at least three rounds at home with a full warm up without getting reaction or pain otherwise I am just going to be going round in circles.”
Scott’s injury could not have come at a worst time for the Nairn golfer and the only Scot in captain Stuart Wilson’s 10-man side set to tee-up early next month on the ultra-private Seminole Club near West Palm Beach in Florida.
The current World No. 8 ranked amateur was one of just two players in the GB & I who were part of the losing 2019 side at Royal Liverpool.
