Golf: Tataurangi ready to start playing in US again

11.45am

World-ranked touring golf professional Phil Tataurangi teed up for the first time since last August's PGA Championships when he played last week's Hastings pro-am.

Tataurangi is pleased with his progress since his return from a back injury and will head back to the United States next Friday with his family and a flexible goal of playing on the secondary Nationwide tour within four weeks and the PGA Tour from June.

"Physically it was good, the back held up I had no pain and no nerve symptoms," he said about playing in Hastings.

"I got a little bit tired before the end, my endurance wasn't there to play that many rounds of golf during the week."

Tataurangi has been undergoing intensive physiotherapy for his injury, a partial tear in the lumbar region suffered in the build-up to this year's New Zealand Open in Auckland which forced him to pull out.

It was an untimely blow for Tataurangi who had surgery on his lower back the year before and had previous seasons affected by neck and heart problems.

He's hoping to put all that behind him now and admitted that, mentally, he was caught a little off-guard on his competitive return in Hastings.

"On the first tee I was nervous, not from the standpoint of putting pressure on myself to achieve or I didn't think my body would hold up. You get those little butterflies going -- it's good to be in the competitive mode again," he said.

It was all plain sailing with an opening round 70 followed up with a scratchy 77, a three over par total for 16th place.

"I made some mistakes," he said.

"I didn't play as well on the Friday as I did Wednesday or Thursday. That's all part of the process of getting back underway. It's like a rugby player playing off the bench for 10 or 15 minutes, then playing the second half, then a full game -- it's the same sort of process," Tataurangi said.

The 32-year-old will play some one-day events when he returns to the United States before joining the Nationwide tour. Tataurangi has a maximum five tournament medical extension as he looks to get golf fit to go back fulltime on the PGA Tour.

He won't set an exact time or tournament for his return date as he admits he struggled to come to terms with withdrawing from this year's New Zealand Open.

"What I've done since not being able to play the New Zealand Open is rather than targeting a specific tournament and getting to the final hurdle and not quite being there but still trying to push myself to play...to take the emotion out of playing in any event," he said.

"There are some emotions involved in playing the New Zealand Open and in playing some of the other big tournaments. Every week there's a big tournament on the PGA Tour. I've tried to take the emotion out of it and let my body say when it's ready."

Tataurangi is confident he won't need to use all five Nationwide events for his warm-up but will if he feels he has to.

"I'm of the opinion I might play two or three of those. It's been really good for my mind to get back in to competitive mode, back in to competing. I'm flat out not going to get out there unless I'm fit and healthy enough but I think I will be."

- DAILY POST (ROTORUA)