Why Wood has been playing at short leg!

Promising superstar Chris Wood is looking forward to a much improved season now that he has discovered his right leg is two inches shorter than his left!

Fitness trainer Steve McGregor, the man responsible for World No.1 Lee Westwood's new, lean and mean figure offered to help Chris sort out a back problem that had been plagueing him since his amateur days- and discovered the deformity.

I suffer from an irritable joint which often slips out of place," commented Chris in his Mizuno-sponsored blog. "Apart from causing quite a lot of pain it feels really weird when it happens, like somebody trying to shove my left leg up into my back. At address, I don’t know where my feet are aiming, my hips, my knees are all wrong – I feel all cockeyed.

"I have to get on the ground and physically click my back to get the joint into place. It’s not the best if you want to play consistent golf. It’s a problem a lot of tall golfers have, there’s only so much stress your back can take."

Chris is now doing a series of exercises to build a shock absorber effect with the muscle around the joint to help hold it in place.

"There’s not much you can do in the gym to reduce the length of one leg or increase the other, so I now have special shoes. The bottom of my right shoe is built up to compensate for the left leg’s extra length. I wore the shoes in Dubai for the World Championship and straight away the difference was amazing. I actually felt normal with my posture for possibly the first time, " says Chris.

"I’d been making all these little compensations, not knowing I had this problem. I’m coming through the ball a lot easier, my balance is better. Before, my right leg was sort of almost hanging back, being left behind. It all bodes well for next season. I should be a much more consistent player."

Chris, who has bought himself a new red BMW M3 sports car, says he has also been working hard on his putting with Southport coach Phil Kenyon.

"I’m very settled with the Mizuno MP-68 / MP-62 iron split set I had all year but I’m testing some new Mizuno irons, too.  I’m absolutely itching to get out on Tour again and I’ll be at the African Open, the first event in the New Year before a week practising in Dubai with my coach Paul Mitchell."