by Troy Landreville

While casual golfers may chew on a burger and fries and slurp down a foamy beer after a round on the links, the serious ones don't live on a "John Daly-esque" diet.

They watch what they eat and live a healthy lifestyle and it pays dividends on their scorecards - and many local golf enthusiasts go to Walnut Grove resident Jenny Grills for training and advice.

"At the world fitness summit that I attended, I learned that 95 per cent of the tour players are doing something [for conditioning]," Grills said. "There are just five per cent who do nothing."

Grills is a golf conditioning guru, so much so that she will be the on-site fitness coach when the Canadian Tour comes to Vancouver June 18-25.

Eighty per cent of her clients are golfers, ranging from juniors, to the silver-haired set, to the University College of the Fraser Valley's varsity squad.

She not only helps young and old golfers strengthen their joints and muscles, but also works with them to prevent golf-related injuries.

Grills' website, grillsgolffitness.com, cites an incidence injury report from J.R. McCarroll, (1996)The Frequency of Golf Injuries, Clinics in Sports Medicine.

"The number one injury among male golfers is back pain (53 per cent) followed by elbow pain (24 per cent). The number one injury among female golfers is lower back pain (45 per cent) followed by elbow pain (27 per cent)."

The American Journal of Sports Medicine states, after a one-year study on back pain on novice golfers, that "as many as 63 per cent of novice golfers are reported to suffer from back pain." *****

After a decade in nursing, Grills felt a career change was in order. She dove into fitness training, her first love, and, in particular, sports performance.

Her husband is an avid golfer who often complained of tight hips and back pain after a day on the links. In many cases, his aches and pains would carry on for a few days.

So Grills started helping him strengthen his core foundation while adding a stretching technique to his program.

"I started working with my spouse - he's a golfer - helping him with his flexibility and his core, and he became better," Grills said. "That was about seven years ago when, really, the fitness movement wasn't there in golfing. The pros were doing it, but your amateurs and people in the public didn't hear about it. It wasn't on The Golf Channel or in magazines like it is now."

Looking to learn more about the unique fitness discipline, Grills contacted Janet Alexander, who has worked as Mike Weir's personal trainer since April 2001. After completing Alexander's golf biomechanical certification program course in San Diego, Grills continued to hone her skills and add knowledge, taking a variety of muscle and balance training.

"Core strength is huge. If you have a core deficit you are going to have limitations somewhere else," said Grills, who lists range of motion and mobility of joints, as well as flexibility of muscle tissue as just some of the challenges golfers face. "Golf is a very repetitive sport. A lot of golfers I work with are very one-sided in that they don't think about hitting the ball the opposite way. It causes asymmetry in the body, so you have to unwind that."

Grills recently returned from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, seeing pro players Lee Curry, and Pat Erickson while they took part at the Nayarit Classic, one of the stops on the Canadian Tour.

The list of high level golfers such as Curry, The Redwoods Golf Course head pro Doug Morgan, and LPGA golfer Jennifer Greggain coming to Grills for fitness advice and conditioning continues to grow.