Foot Pain in Golfers: Why Your Feet Give Out Before Your Swing Does

If your feet are sore after a round, it's probably not your swing. In most of the golfers we see, it's the walk, the shoes, or both.

We're about ten minutes down the road from Wantima Country Club in Brendale (Cameron Smith's home course), so golfers make up a fair chunk of the people walking through our door in Albany Creek. Very few of them hurt themselves on one big swing. Most have just put a lot of kilometres on their feet, four hours at a time, in shoes that weren't really built for walking.

A round of golf is a long walk

Walk 18 holes and you'll cover somewhere around 8 to 10 kilometres once you add the walk from green to tee, the search in the rough and the trip back to the car for the sunscreen you forgot. Do that on sloping fairways, wet grass and hard cart paths a few times a week, and your feet are doing a lot more work than you give them credit for.

Then add a swing that twists the foot into the ground on every shot, and it's not surprising things start to complain.

Heel pain after a few holes

This is the most common one we see. The heel feels fine on the first tee, starts to nag around the turn, and by the 18th you're walking like you've stepped on a Lego. The next morning, the first few steps out of bed are the worst.

That pattern is usually plantar fasciitis, irritation of the band of tissue that runs from your heel to your toes. Long walks, hard cart paths and flat, firm golf shoes all add load to it. If it's more of a deep, bruised ache right in the middle of the heel, the heel fat pad can be the culprit instead. Our heel pain page goes through the difference, or you can try our foot pain self-check.

Pain on the inside of the ankle

Recently we saw a keen golfer who'd developed pain on the inside of her ankle that was causing her a lot of trouble on the course. She had tibialis posterior tendon dysfunction.

The tibialis posterior tendon runs behind the bone on the inside of your ankle and helps hold your arch up. When it's overloaded, the inside of the ankle gets sore, it can swell, and over time the arch can start to drop on that side.

Golf is tough on it. Every time you walk across a sloping fairway, the downhill foot rolls in and the tendon has to work harder to control it. Do that for four hours and a tendon that's already struggling lets you know about it. This one is worth getting on top of early, because it can progress if it's left.

Forefoot pain and the golf shoe problem

In a right-handed swing, your right foot rolls up onto the ball of the foot and the big toe as you come through the ball (left-handers, flip that). That puts a lot of pressure through the forefoot and bends the big toe joint on every shot.

Golf shoes don't always help. Plenty are narrow through the toes, and some have firm soles or spikes sitting right under the ball of the foot. The result is the forefoot pain we see a lot of: burning or tingling between the toes that eases when you take the shoe off (often a Morton’s neuroma), a general ache under the ball of the foot, or a stiff, sore big toe joint, sometimes with a bunion that's being squashed by the shoe.

Achilles pain on hilly courses

Walking uphill loads the Achilles and calf more than flat ground does, and plenty of courses around the northside have no shortage of hills. In golfers, Achilles pain usually shows up either right where the tendon attaches to the heel, often aggravated by the back of the shoe, or a few centimetres higher in the tendon itself. Our Achilles tendinopathy guide covers both.

How we treat foot pain in golfers

The first step is working out what's actually going on. We'll look at your feet, how you walk and, importantly, your golf shoes. Treatment depends on what we find, but it usually includes some of the following.

Custom orthotics designed to fit your golf shoes. For plantar heel pain and inside-of-the-ankle problems like tibialis posterior tendon dysfunction, custom foot orthotics can take load off the tissues that are struggling. We make them to suit the shoe you'll actually wear on the course, not just your everyday runners.

Changes to your golf shoes. For forefoot pain this can be as simple as padding or modifying the pair you have, or moving to a slightly wider pair with more room around the toe box.

A strengthening programme. Whatever tissue is being overloaded needs to be built back up so it can handle a full round again.

Shockwave therapy. For heel and Achilles pain that hasn't settled with other care, shockwave therapy may be an option.

Referral to North West Physiotherapy at Carseldine. Sometimes the problem isn't only in the foot. North West Physiotherapy has a golf simulator at their Carseldine clinic, so they can look at what's happening through your swing and pick up anything further up the chain, like a stiff hip or back, that might be changing how your feet are loaded.

Bring your golf shoes

If you play golf and you've got foot, ankle or lower leg pain, book in for an assessment and bring your golf shoes with you. They tell us a lot more than the shoes you wore to the appointment. No referral is needed, and we're about ten minutes from Wantima with parking right outside.

Book an appointment online or have a look at our sports podiatry services.