“Should I play through this?” is the most common question I get, and the honest answer is that it depends on what the pain is doing rather than how much of it there is.
Pain is not a damage meter
It is tempting to treat pain as a direct readout of tissue damage. It is not. Pain is a protective output influenced by load, sleep, stress, previous experience and a good deal else. People walk around comfortably with findings on a scan that look alarming, and people have severe pain with nothing structural to show for it.
So the useful question is not “how much does it hurt” but “how is it behaving”.
A practical rule
Three things matter more than intensity.
Does it climb during activity? Pain that starts at a two and stays around a two through eighteen holes is behaving very differently from pain that starts at a two and reaches a six by the twelfth. The second is telling you the tissue is not tolerating the load.
Has it settled by the next morning? A short flare that resolves overnight is usually acceptable. Pain that is still elevated 24 hours later means you exceeded what the tissue could handle.
Is it changing how you move? This is the one most people ignore, and it is the most important. If you have altered your swing, your walking pattern, or how you get out of a cart to avoid it, you are now loading other structures in ways they were not built for. That is how a manageable hip problem becomes a hip problem plus a low back problem.
The things that change the answer
Some findings are not a judgement call.
Pain that travels down the leg with numbness, pins and needles or weakness needs assessing promptly, because that suggests nerve involvement rather than a local tissue problem.
A hip that catches, locks or gives way is a mechanical symptom worth investigating rather than managing.
Night pain that wakes you and is not related to position deserves attention.
And any sudden, severe onset with an obvious mechanism, particularly with rapid swelling or an inability to bear weight, is a same-day question rather than a next-month one.
Why hips get blamed for other people’s work
A lot of what golfers call hip pain is a hip doing a job it was not given. When the thoracic spine will not rotate, the hip and the lumbar spine take on more than their share. When the ankle will not dorsiflex, the loading pattern changes all the way up.
That is why treating the sore hip in isolation so often produces a few good weeks followed by a return. The hip was not the problem; it was the place the problem showed up.
What to do in the meantime
Modify rather than stop entirely, unless something in the list above applies. Nine holes instead of eighteen. Ride rather than walk. Reduce range on the backswing temporarily. Keep the tissue loaded at a level it tolerates, because complete rest deconditions faster than most people expect and rarely resolves anything mechanical.
Then get it assessed properly if it has not improved in two to three weeks. At that point you are not waiting for it to resolve, you are giving it time to recruit compensations.
Brian Bolin is a Doctor of Physical Therapy treating golfers and active adults across Naples, Marco Island and the wider Collier County area.