FIT FOR GOLF
When the European Tour’s physiotherapy unit was first founded in 1992, the idea of warming up, working out, and devoting half an hour to recovery after 18 holes was little more than an afterthought for most golfers.
“When I first turned pro, I was the only one in the gym, except Vijay [Singh],” Tiger revealed earlier this year. “Now, everyone trains. Everyone works on their bodies, besides their game, and hey, even Phil [Mickelson] is working out! Things have come a long way.”
Rob Hillman can testify to that, having started volunteering for the European Tour in an era where players favoured drinking sessions over gym sessions and were derided for being non-athletes.
DR ANDREW MURRAY Chief Medical Officer for the European Tour.
ROB HILLMAN Director of the Physiotherapy Unit and Performance Institute for the European Tour.
“The ‘Tiger effect’ changed everything,” says Hillman, who left the NHS to join the European Tour full-time as a physiotherapist in the early noughties. Changing attitudes towards health, fitness and wellbeing mean it’s now not uncommon to see more than 100 players working out or requesting treatment on the physio truck on any given day.
Hillman now acts as a director of the Physiotherapy Unit and Performance Institute, and heads up a team of physiotherapists, osteopaths, chiropractors and sports therapists who travel 30,000km a year across Europe, Asia and even into Africa.
The hard part, Hillman admits, is getting the truck – which doubles as a gym and medical practice at tournaments – from A to B. It is his job to manage the
