Doc says Crane came back from injury too soon

• By Rex Hoggard
• Oct 11, 2012 4:28 PM ET

ORLANDO, Fla. – When Dr. Greg Rose tells the crowd of 650 at the annual World Golf Fitness Summit that he understands the delicate balance between an athlete’s desire to compete and the physical reality of injury his “street cred” is beyond reproach.

In fact, it was a conversation he had just hours before with Ben Crane, his star player and medical miracle. Crane has been on and off the disabled list since early August when he aggravated a lower back injury at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

He returned for the FedEx Cup playoffs, probably too soon Rose now concedes, and narrowly missed advancing to the Tour Championship. Late Wednesday Crane called Rose to talk about possibly playing this week’s Frys.com Open.

“He played in a pro-am (in Texas) on Monday and played great but told me he was a little sore the next day,” said Rose, a co-founder of the Titleist Performance Institute and Fitness Summit, now in its seventh year. “You just can’t take a competitive player and sit them on the sideline.”

Crane came around to Rose’s way of thinking and skipped the Frys.com, but plans to play next week’s McGladrey Classic, which he won last year, and the CIMB Asia Pacific Classic, which he won in 2010, later this month.

So when Rose tells the crowd at the Fitness Summit that one of the keys to recovery is rest he speaks from experience.

“Once they get injured the first thing they do is want to go back to work,” Rose said. “I tell my players that when you feel like you’re healed, give me another two or three weeks.”