One of these years Fred Couples and his tortured back are going to say, “Enough.”
Enough heating pads. Enough cortisone shots. Enough suffering.
This year, it appears, is not that year.
Couples, 66, is, well . . . back at it this week, at the PGA Tour Champions season opener in Hawaii. Many familiar faces are soaking up the sun alongside Boom Boom — Ernie Els, Stewart Cink, Jim Furyk — but not many of Couples’ peers have battled the kind of chronic discomfort that has dogged him since at least the mid-90s.
He’s had many painful lows over that stretch but perhaps none grimmer than the Masters two years ago when he couldn’t hit his 7-iron more than about 80 yards and called his play “embarrassing.” A year later, though, he returned with a bag full of hybrids and in his opening round made two birdies and an eagle en route to a cool 71. So it goes with Fred: ups and downs, downs and ups.
And in Hawaii this week?
“My body hurts,” he said (groaned?) Thursday.
But it’s not Fred’s back that’s bugging him. He’s coming off a wicked flu that triggered three or four days of coughing. All that hacking, he said, has left his body aching.
“Makes my back seem like nothing,” he said.
When Couples’ caddie, Mark Chaney, appeared on the range before the opening round at Hualalai, Couples was gobsmacked.
“Where’s my cart?” he said.
Couples was in such a bad state, he said, that he couldn’t walk a single hole. Still, he’s powering through.
“As long as it feels like this, I just get tired,” he said. “I’ve done nothing. I’ve laid in bed trying to make sure I didn’t go anywhere too fast so I’d get sick again. I wanted to come to Hawaii kind of fresh. Seems like it’s worked out.”
It did on Thursday, anyway.
Couples opened with a poor drive (but saved par) followed by a “bad”-9-iron-and-three-putt bogey at the 2nd. “Here we are starting 2026 on a course that I absolutely love over par,” he said.
But then he found something. “I birdied 3 and eagled 4, which kind of gave me a nice ‘let’s get going.’ I drove it well, I hit some good irons and when I did get it close enough, I seemed to make the putts.” It resulted in a seven-under 65 that left him one off Stephen Ames’s first-round lead.
It was a stylish round for Couples, and not just his shotmaking. This week’s start represents only Couples’ second in his role as a model for Malbon, the lifestyle brand that has been bringing streetwear-inspired fashion to the golf course. Couples hasn’t yet gone full Jason Day with his outfits, instead electing for the company’s more conservative options.
“I wear a lot of white shirts and I wear a lot of slacks,” Couples said.
Might we see Couples competing in a hoodie at some point?
“You might, but it will be cashmere,” he said. “It won’t be anything else. And they know that, and that’s basically why I signed. They were so understanding. One of the next two days I’ll have some different kind of pants on, but they fit me beautifully.” He added, “Or I could wash these clothes and wear these again.”
With Fred, it’s hard to know what to expect.
