There was good news for Irish golf fans with Seamus Power pleased in admitting he’s playing pain free after contesting all four rounds at last week’s Genesis Invitational.
Power, 36, matched his best effort this new season with a T31 finish at Riviera Country Club, and what was a similar result in the weather affected AT & T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. The Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines remains his only missed cut of the season, and the four rounds at Riviera now mean he’s contested 21 of a possible 23 from his six starts.
The Las Vegas-based Irishman is lying 76th on the current FedEx Cup standings and while he slipped three places to the new World No. 107 it’s all positive news for Power after being sidelined with a hip injury for all but two events from the Open Championship through to the end of last year.
Power struggled for much of the ’23 season with the double PGA Tour winner making the halfway cut in 14 events but also sitting out the weekend rounds in six, and being forced to withdraw after two rounds of July’s Genesis Scottish Open.
The Irishman began experiencing pain in his hip early last year but admitted he played through the pain barrier before being sidelined, and finally accepting the only real cure was rest and rehabilitation.
After four months on the sidelines he eagerly kick-started his 2024 season in Hawaii at The Sentry but admitted he was fighting pain during the Sony Open, the second event of the season.
However, Power attributes a cortisone injection after its conclusion as being beneficial and having the desired result.
“It’s been interesting on the west coast for me because we didn’t we didn’t really have an off-season,” he said as reported in the Irish Independent.
“So it’s kind of an off-season on the fly here, piecing it together a little bit, but getting there.
“I didn’t play much really until Maui and then had a bit of a setback with it and had to get a cortisone shot after Sony. There’s no major damage in there. It got inflamed probably 12 months ago-ish, and then I played on it and just made it worse.
“So a lot of it was just rest and recovery and then because I played on it for so long, I probably wasn’t going to recover just with rehab and rest, so I needed a little bit of help.
“It’s been great since. So now it’s really getting there. It’s not really bothering me at all anymore, which it did for the first couple of weeks in Hawaii.”
Power is not contesting this week’s Mexico Open at Vidanta but will return for the Florida Swing and next week’s Cognizant Classic at Palm Beach Gardens, formerly called the Honda Classic, which takes place on the difficult PGA National Golf Course.
However, with The Masters now less than 50 days away, a climb back into the top 50 in the world rankings or a victory in a PGA Tour event – though the latter probably ensures the former – are necessary for Power to make a third straight Masters appearance and he admits himself that it’s going be a stretch to play his way in.
“At this stage, I probably have to win an event to get in the Masters,” he said, but the news that the niggling hip injury finally seems alleviated is music to our ears.
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