One of these years, Fred Couples and his tortured back will say, “Enough.”
Enough heating pads. Enough cortisone injections. Enough suffering.
This year doesn’t seem to be that year.
Couples, 66, yes. . . check back this week at the PGA Tour Champions season opener in Hawaii. Many famous faces are soaking up the sun alongside Boom Boom – Ernie Els, Stewart Cink, Jim Furyk – but not many of Couples’ peers have suffered the kind of chronic discomfort that has dogged him since the mid-1990s.
He’s had plenty of painful lows in that stretch, but perhaps none more grim than the Masters two years ago, when he couldn’t hit his 7-iron more than about 250 feet and called his play “embarrassing.” But a year later he returned with a bag full of hybrids and made two birdies and an eagle in his opening round on his way to a cool 71. That’s how it goes with Fred: ups and downs, downs and ups.
And this week in Hawaii?
“My body hurts,” he said (moaned?) Thursday.
But it’s not Fred’s back that’s bothering him. He has been suffering from a severe flu that caused a cough for three or four days. All that hacking, he said, has left his body sore.
“My back looks like nothing,” he said.
When Couples’ caddy, Mark Chaney, showed up on the course before the opening round in Hualalai, Couples was stunned.
“Where’s my cart?” he said.
Pars was in such bad shape, he said, that he could no longer walk any distance. Yet he comes through.
“As long as it feels like this, I just get tired,” he said. “I didn’t do anything. I just lay in bed and tried to make sure I didn’t go somewhere too quickly and get sick again. I wanted to come to Hawaii fresh and healthy. It looks like it worked.”
That was certainly the case on Thursday.
The pairs opened with a bad drive (but saved par), followed by a “bad” 9-iron and three-putt bogey on the 2nd. “Here we start 2026 on a course I absolutely love,” he said.
But then he found something. “I birded 3 and nominated 4, which gave me a nice ‘let’s get started.’ I drove it well, I hit some good irons and when I got it close enough I looked like I was making the putts. It resulted in a seven-under 65, putting him one ahead of Stephen Ames’ first-round lead.
It was a classy round for couples, and not just his shotmaking. This week’s launch represents just Couples’ second in his role as a model for Malbon, the lifestyle brand that brings streetwear-inspired fashion to the golf course. Couples hasn’t gone all out with Jason Day’s outfits yet, opting for the company’s more conservative options.
“I wear a lot of white shirts and I wear a lot of slacks,” Couples said.
Could we ever see couples compete in a hoodie?
“It could be, but it will be cashmere,” he said. “It won’t be anything different. And they know that, and that’s actually why I signed. They were so understanding. One of the next two days I’ll be wearing a different kind of pants, but they fit me beautifully.” He added, “Or I can wash these clothes and wear them again.”
With Fred it is difficult to know what to expect.
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