UPDATE: Perez spoke on his radio show later and called his injury a “calf strain 2, which is basically a torn calf muscle. It’s much better than an Achilles.” Perez clarified this injury will likely keep him from competitive golf for six weeks.
A frustrating weekend for Pat Perez got worse as he “blew out” the achilles tendon in his left leg.
Perez, 43, made the cut and finished T50 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational Sunday, but posted on Instagram that he’d “See y’all down the road somewhere,” on Monday afternoon.
It’s a brutal injury at a brutal time for Perez. The three-time Tour winner is in the middle of trying to qualify for the Masters and the rest of this year’s major tournaments. Now, he’ll likely be sidelined for a while. The typical timetable for recovery from a ruptured achilles tendon begins at at least six months.
The severity of Perez’s injury remains unclear, but you will not see him play at the Players Championship this week and likely won’t see much of him in the near future. Considering the exemptions he could apply for via the PGA Tour, the lengthy rehab could keep Perez from a major competition schedule until springtime 2020.
As Dr. Steven M. Raikin wrote for Sports Illustrated, once the achilles tendon ruptures, it is usually never back to 100%. While Perez plays a sport that doesn’t involve as much pressure being put on the achilles as, say, a sprinting wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, he is bound to be laid up and unable to swing a golf club for a handful of months at least.
You can check out Perez’s post on Instagram below.
