Handicap after injury

What is peoples thoughts on returning to golf after an injury and how your handicap is affected?

My personal situation is I have just returned to golf after a 6 month lay-off due to a rotator cuff injury to my shoulder. Whilst I can now raise my arm above horizontal my golf swing is reduced to a half swing. Although I've surprised myself with scores of 28 and 32 points, distance is the obvious problem.
Would it be unreasonable to ask for a handicap review?

I think that would be reasonable 4Putt. You can point to a major surgery as the reason for the request as it's likely to cause a drastic change to your swing. I would suggest asking to have a few scores verified by a club official and then over the course of time as your recovery continues your handicap would adjust to your new level.

Yes, contact the handicap secretary and ask for your handicap to be reviewed in the light of your injury. Otherwise it takes most people at least three years to get their handicap up by 5, and that's a long time to be uncompetitive.

Sounds a reasonable request to me too - though I suppose it may depend a little on what your original handicap was. If a cat1 golfer had that sort of surgery I'd expect it to have a bigger impact on your scores that a cat 3 or 4.

Mind you, 32 points after a 6 month lay off and a fairly serious injury isn't that shabby. I know plenty of golfers from cat1 to cat4 who aren't TOO disappointed with that

Thanks for the replies. I will ask for a review after my next game, but their an unforgiving lot of so and so's. I expect the responce to be something like, "You gotta be kidding, you couldn't score 30 points when you were fit".

I think a handicap review is out of the question and you should be left to suffer, struggling to play to your handicap and seldom if ever looking like winning anything. If it's good enough for me.........

4putt wrote:Thanks for the replies. I will ask for a review after my next game, but their an unforgiving lot of so and so's. I expect the responce to be something like, "You gotta be kidding, you couldn't score 30 points when you were fit".

But, you had a right to ask for a review then too!

If you genuinely haven't got anywhere near you handicap, you should automatically be given shots back in the annual review and you shouldn't have to ask.

My handicap has gone from 5 to 16 in 4 years. Had it reviewed once, last December. Went up 2. Even then people moaned. Their opinion is that having been a reasonable player once I'm capable of regaining my game. I did my shoulder in by hitting hundreds of balls on the range in an attempt to get my game back. Should have known better now that I'm an OAP.
There's no clubs where I live, just Societies run by well intentioned volunteers with no experience.

Do you expect your shoulder to return to 100% 4putt? And within what timeframe?

I had a similar injury to my other shoulder 10 years ago. It didn't affect my golf swing, but I couldn't bowl at cricket. It took 2 years to heal. The current injury is more severe. I still cannot lay on my right side. I had resigned to not playing golf again this year but have found a good orthopedic surgeon in another town who has managed to get some movement in the shoulder. If I do manage to get 100% use of my shoulder I think it will be a long process.

Update. After 9 holes today I felt a total fraud and was ready to post on here offering my humble apologies for wasting everyone's time. Nine holes later it was situation normal. Scored a total of 28pts made up of two halves of 22pts and 6pts.