Back agony had me chomping on painkillers. I was depressed but now I’m fit & ready to go

SAYS DANNY WILLETT

Danny Willett has revealed the “painkiller chomping” nightmare that wrecked his game.

The English star has been cursed with back pain since he won the Masters in 2016.

He has plunged down the rankings, pulled out of events and suffered runs of abysmal form.

And, off the course, Willett has spoken out about his depression brought on by the agony of doing simple tasks – even picking up his kids.

The 30-year-old found his body was unable to cope with a punishing playing schedule and bad swing habits.

Now he’s battling back to form ahead of The Open at Carnoustie next week – rebuilding his swing with coach Sean Foley.

Willett plunged from the world’s top 10 to 400th in a miserable run that included 10 missed cuts out of 12 events this year before he finally started hitting some form in recent weeks.

He said: “It is nice to wake up and not be chomping pain-killers and still able to do the simple things I want to do. “Everything kind of spirals. “I was in a lot of pain before. Bending over. Picking the kids up. That kind of stuff. My back was hurting.

“I tore my shoulder. You tear your shoulder and your swing is dodgy.

“I have messed up my knee a little bit and then your neck goes. It just rolls on.

“It is not the primary injury necessarily, it is the secondary stuff that people don’t realise.

“Walking is a massive thing. We walk 10-12 miles a day on the course. If you are injured and walking cagey, you end up with a secondary problem – because you’re putting a strain on other areas.

“It’s so annoying. You don’t realise at first but those are the real killers.”

Willett was sixth at the Irish Open last weekend and eighth at the Italian in June.

He added: “I got low. People wanted me to play all over, different places.

“I was Masters champion, people wanted me to play here and there. I probably played a bit too much and my body wasn’t ready for it. It had a knock-on effect into the next year.

“It just makes you a bit depressed. You know what you can do, know what you can achieve. “The career I’ve had has been good. “But it was getting to a point where I was sitting at home, wanting to practise – but I just couldn’t.

“Luckily my wife Nicole and I had our second boy Noah, who was born in December, and we were kept busy.

“Kids are a great distraction. Golf wasn’t going great but you realise you are fortunate in many other ways.”

Willett says he’s now hitting the ball better than before his Augusta heroics.

He said: “My best golf shots are better than they have ever been. It is a completely different ball flight. Better than the Masters? The ball flight is a lot better, yeah.

“It is getting the stuff that’s not so good to a standard where it won’t kick you in the a***.

“I’ve had a couple of nice results. It took a lot of work to kind of strip it back and build up from the beginning. It has been a long process.

“Now the body is good, my swing is getting there. We are able to put in more training hours and we are seeing the gains.

“It’s still baby steps, we’re not half way to where we want to be. I’ll keep building every day and move forward.”