Normally, hearing about a senior with hip problems would not be very surprising. But the senior you’re about to meet is a senior in high school. Thanks to Mayo Clinic, this young woman has a bright future that’s all teed up.
There’s nothing like the sound of a solidly struck drive. Growing up in a golf family, it’s a sound that Maddy Trapnell has heard a lot of. But it was a different sound that she says had her worried about her golfing future. “It would clunk, like, over and over again.”
That “clunking,” as she puts it, was coming from Maddy’s hip. Like golf, hip problems run in her family. Maddy says her symptoms started when she was 14. Then, in the fall of 2022, her junior year of high school, she says her symptoms got worse. “My coaches started taking me out of tournaments because, like, I refused to stop. But they took me out because it’s like, ‘You’re in pain. You need to stop.'”
Watch Golfer’s future back on course following hip surgery
Journalists: Broadcast-quality video (2:29) is in the downloads at the end of this post. Please courtesy: “Mayo Clinic News Network.” Read the script.
After seeing a few local doctors, Maddy came to Mayo Clinic, where she met with orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Emmanouil Grigoriou. “So Maddy’s case is unique because she had pathology both inside her hip joint, as well as outside the hip joint around the hip with how her bones were formed.”
Understandably, Maddy says she was worried about her future. “Like, I was just worried, like, what’s my senior year going to look like? Like, am I going to be able to play? Is this pain ever going to go away?”
Dr. Grigoriou explains why was able to get back on the course so quickly. “We’re able to do both procedures in the same setting, which is very, very important for the patients and allows them to return back to what they love, faster. We’re able to do both the hip arthroscopy and the periacetabular osteotomy; the same setting on the same day with a single anesthesia event, a single recovery, a single rehabilitation — one and done.”
Less than six months after surgery and just weeks before her senior season was due to start, Maddy was cleared to start playing again. Maddy says it took a little while to get back into the swing of things. “I started being very consistent again and started having fun again. And yeah, I was excited. It was great.”
And a senior season that was once in jeopardy, ended with a top-10 finish at the state tournament. Recently, Maddy was back at Mayo to have three screws, the last reminder of her surgery, removed.
While uncertain about her competitive golfing future, Maddy says she has her eye on college and something else that runs in the family. “What’s next is I’m planning to attend the University of North Dakota for mechanical and aerospace engineering. I love airplanes. I love flying. I love looking at them. I think they’re fascinating. And so, I just want to do something that I know I’m going to enjoy and I’m passionate about.”
Just like her golf game.
