At 45, Mickelson has played without any of the serious back pain that has plagued golfers nearly half his age, including the major champions Rory McIlroy, 26, and Jason Day, 28.
Day, the reigning PGA Championship winner, has dealt with back problems since he was 13, he said.
McIlroy, a four-time major champion who can complete the career Grand Slam with a victory in the Masters, said back problems as a 19-year-old prompted him to commit to the gym regimen that has turned him into one of the fittest players on the PGA and European Tours.
A bad back has compromised the career of Louis Oosthuizen, the 2010 British Open champion and 2012 Masters runner-up.
Jack Nicklaus, the 18-time major champion, was one of the longer hitters of his day, yet he did not experience back pain, he said, until he was in his 40s.
At New York's Mount Sinai Hospital, Dr. Andrew Hecht, the chief of spine surgery, said he has treated a 14-year-old golfer with a stress fracture and a 16-year-old in the sport with a lumbar disk herniation.
A lot of the young guys continue to get hurt as they create this violent connected movement, and I don't believe that's the proper way to swing the golf club.
