How a Massage Gun Saved My Back Nine

The back nine was where I lost every round. I could walk the front nine feeling fine, maybe post a 44, and then somewhere around the 12th hole my lower back would start to tighten. By 15 I was swinging like I was afraid of my own body, and the scorecard showed it. Ten years of a stiff, cranky lumbar will do that to a weekend golfer.

I am Gary Lindquist, 62, a retired high school shop teacher in Rochester, Minnesota. I have played golf for thirty years, and for the last ten of them my lower back has been the most consistent thing in my game. Long drives to the course made it worse. Range balls made it worse. Sitting in a cart made it worse, and walking with a push cart was better, but not by much.

What finally helped was not what I expected. My son-in-law left a TOLOCO massage gun in my garage last spring, the deep tissue model, and told me to try it before I wrote it off as another gadget. I tried it mostly to be polite.

I used it on my lower back the night before a round, and again in the parking lot before teeing off. That first round I walked all eighteen holes, and my back did not grab me on the back nine. I am not going to tell you it fixed everything, because it did not. But it was the first time in years that the 14th hole did not feel like a punishment. My son-in-law calls it a percussive therapy device. I call it the thing that stopped me from groaning when I bent down to pick up my tee.

This is not medical advice. I am not a doctor or a physical therapist. If your back pain is sharp, or radiates down a leg, or comes with numbness, see a professional. What I can tell you is what worked for one 62-year-old weekend golfer with plain, achy, tight lumbar muscles.

The first time I used the TOLOCO on my lower back, I stood up straighter than I had all week. That sold me more than any ad could.

Here is the routine that has held up since May. The night before a round, I spend ten minutes on my lower back and glutes while I watch the news. Low speed to start, then a deeper setting on the spots that feel tight. In the parking lot before the round, two or three minutes on the same area, just enough to get blood moving. After the round, another five minutes while I unload the push cart. That is it. No voodoo, no stretching routine I will not actually do.

The difference shows up on the scorecard in a boring way. I am not hitting the ball farther. I am not suddenly flexible. What changed is that my back stops being the thing I think about on the 15th tee. When you are not guarding your own body, you can actually swing. My handicap is still mid-teens, but the rounds are more fun, and the back nine does not feel like a separate sport.

Linda walks nine holes with me some evenings, and she has started borrowing the TOLOCO for her shoulders after she gets home. Birdie, our yellow Lab puppy, just chews on the foam roller, so we keep that out of reach. The gun lives on a shelf in the garage next to the hitting net, where I can grab it without thinking.

I have tried the usual things over the years. Heat pads, stretching, a foam roller, and more than one evening on the couch with a bag of frozen peas. Some of them helped a little. The TOLOCO is the first thing that helped enough that I actually kept doing it, because it takes ten minutes and I can do it standing in the garage. That matters. A recovery tool you do not use is worth nothing.

Is it for everyone? No. If you want the long version of how the TOLOCO has held up over months of use, there is a full review on the site. If you are weighing it against a foam roller, there is a comparison that covers that. And if you are mostly wondering whether it is worth it for golfers, there is a list of reasons worth reading. The short version is this: it got me back to walking the full 18.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If we were sitting at my kitchen table with coffee, here is what I would say. A massage gun is not a fix for a bad back, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. It is a tool for tight muscles, and tight muscles are a big part of what makes a back ache after a day of golf. Use it the night before, use it before you tee off, use it after the round, and see if the back nine stops feeling like a wall. And if the pain is sharp or goes down your leg, skip the gadget and call a doctor. That advice cost me nothing, and it is worth more than the gun.