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For professional golfers, multiple PGA championships can really take their toll on the body. Golf is certainly not a considered a contact sport, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t strenuous. Without the risk of collision injuries, professional golfers are able to keep driving toward their goals even as they continue to advance in age, if not for the aches and pains.

Swinging a club for a living means repeatedly working only one side of the body, leaving these athletes with a feeling of muscle imbalance that can lead to injury.

For World Champion golfer Tiger Woods, his career ambitions at age 38 are as real now as they were 20 years ago. Today, he still puts in a good deal of time firing golf balls at the golf course practice netting in order to keep a competitive edge on the course with the rest of them. But at this point in his career, even this golf legend is struggling increasingly with those limiting aches and pains that come with age.

“A bad back is something that is no joke,” Woods said. “I can do my job and deliver the club and deliver the final moment to the ball and hit the shot I want to hit. It’s just going to hurt like hell afterwards.”

Since there is no “switch hitting” for pro golfers, many other competitors share in Woods’s complaints of pain and imbalance. So how are they proceeding to shoot under par despite the pain? One word: yoga.

The ancient practice of meditative balance and strengthening has turned out to be a life saver, particularly for Tiger Woods. Golf-specific yoga sequences combine therapeutic body workouts with a special attention to clarity of the mind. Yoga has done wonders for professional golfers looking for relief, and athletes of all kinds are now also turning to regular yoga practice to help their game.

For aging athletes who swing a golf club a thousand times a day in the same direction, who would have thought that yoga would keep them in the game, as well as helping them to find their balance?