Golf vs Tennis Elbow: How to Tell Which One You Have

By Clinton Grobbelaar, Physiotherapist. Published 16 September 2026.

The golf vs tennis elbow question comes down to one thing: which side of the elbow hurts. Tennis elbow causes pain on the outside. Golfer's elbow causes pain on the inside. Both are tendon problems where the forearm muscles anchor to the bone, and both respond to the same approach of load management and graded exercise.

That distinction settles it most of the time. Here is how to confirm it yourself, how long each realistically takes to settle, and what actually helps.

What is the difference between golfer's elbow and tennis elbow?

Tennis elbow is the everyday name for lateral epicondylitis, a tendinopathy of the tendons that extend the wrist and fingers and attach to the bony bump on the outside of the elbow. Golfer's elbow is medial epicondylitis, affecting the tendons that flex the wrist and turn the palm downwards, which attach to the bony bump on the inside.

The NHS describes the main symptom of tennis elbow as pain on the outside of your elbow, worse when lifting, gripping or moving your wrist. The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust describes golfer's elbow as pain on the inner side around the medial epicondyle, with stiffness and difficulty gripping.

Neither is truly an inflammation, despite the "itis" in both names. Both involve small tears and degenerative change where the tendon meets the bone. That matters, because it explains why rest alone so often fails.

Golf vs tennis elbow: which is more common?

Tennis elbow, by a wide margin. InformedHealth.org reports that tennis elbow affects roughly 2% of the population while golfer's elbow affects less than 1%, and that symptoms are most common between the ages of 40 and 60. StatPearls puts medial epicondylitis at approximately 10% to 20% of all epicondylitis cases.

Two self-tests you can do at home in thirty seconds

These do not replace an assessment, but they are the tests a physiotherapist starts with.

The tennis elbow test. Straighten your arm and turn your palm down towards the floor. Have someone push down on the back of your hand while you hold the wrist up against them. StatPearls describes pain on resisted wrist extension with the elbow extended and the forearm pronated as the classic finding. Resisting pressure on the middle finger alone is just as telling, and StatPearls notes it is particularly painful in tennis elbow.

The golfer's elbow test. Straighten your arm, turn your palm upwards, then curl your wrist towards you against resistance while turning the palm back down. StatPearls describes pain with resisted wrist flexion and forearm pronation as the classic finding for medial epicondylitis. You will usually also find point tenderness 5 to 10mm below and in front of the bony bump on the inside.

Pain on the outside points to tennis elbow, pain on the inside to golfer's elbow. If both reproduce pain, you may have both, which is uncommon but not rare.

Why neither condition is caused by the sport it is named after

The names are historical accidents. InformedHealth.org states that although both can be caused by playing tennis or golf, the symptoms most often have other causes, listing manual work, computer work and playing musical instruments. StatPearls reports that tennis players make up only 10% of the tennis elbow patient population.

The other 90% get it from gripping, lifting and repetitive wrist work: plastering, carrying, using a screwdriver, long hours at a keyboard. This is why "stop playing tennis" is such useless advice. The aggravating load is usually somewhere in daily life or work, and finding it is the first job of an assessment.

How long do golfer's elbow and tennis elbow take to heal?

Longer than most people expect, and the published ranges are wide.

For tennis elbow, the NHS says it usually goes away with rest over a few weeks but can sometimes last over a year. StatPearls reports that 80% to 90% of patients recover spontaneously within one to two years, with the majority improving within 3 to 18 months.

For golfer's elbow, the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is blunt: it will settle on its own, however this could take months or years. StatPearls reports that more than 90% of patients improve with non-operative treatment, with surgery reserved for cases that have not responded to 3 to 6 months of it.

The practical reading: most elbow tendinopathy gets better, and very little of it gets better quickly. Six weeks of doing nothing is not a failed treatment, because nothing was treated.

What actually treats elbow tendinopathy?

Three things do the work, and they run together rather than in sequence.

Load management, not rest. The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust advises reducing painful movements, distributing load to the larger shoulder and arm muscles, using minimal grip force and enlarging grip size. A fatter handle and a lighter shopping bag do more than most braces.

Loaded exercise. Tendons respond to graded load, not to being left alone. The same NHS source prescribes wrist stretching held for 20 to 30 seconds three times daily, and eccentric strengthening over a six second lowering phase, progressing with light weights.

Hands-on treatment. A 2024 Cochrane review by Wallis and colleagues, covering 23 trials and 1,612 participants, found that manual therapy may reduce pain and elbow disability after two to three weeks compared with placebo, with pain scores improving from 4.1 to 2.0 on a 0 to 10 scale. Cochrane rated this low-certainty evidence, with adverse effects that were mild and transient. A modest, honest result, best read as one component alongside loading rather than a treatment on its own.

Shockwave therapy is a fair question, and the answer differs by site. For lateral elbow pain specifically, a Cochrane review of nine trials and over 1,000 participants concluded that shock wave therapy provides little or no benefit for pain and function. Brookwood Physio offers shockwave therapy for chronic tendinosis and tendon calcification, where it earns its place, but it is not the automatic answer for tennis elbow and we would rather say so.

When should you see a physiotherapist about elbow pain?

The NHS suggests seeing a GP if elbow pain persists after at least two weeks of rest and self-care, and says physiotherapy may help if symptoms have not improved after six weeks of home treatment. Some signs warrant an assessment sooner:

• Numbness, pins and needles or weakness in the hand or fingers. StatPearls notes that straightforward tennis elbow shows an absence of numbness and tingling, and that posterior interosseous nerve entrapment may coexist in up to 15% of cases. Ulnar nerve involvement is common alongside golfer's elbow.
• Pain that started with a sudden snap or tear rather than building gradually.
• Pain that wakes you at night or is present at complete rest.
• Neck or shoulder pain alongside it, which can indicate referred pain from the cervical spine.
• Significant swelling, redness, heat or fever.
• Elbow pain that has not shifted after three months of sensible self-management.

Clinton has been assessing elbows in private practice for over 30 years, and the most common finding is not a mystery diagnosis. It is that the aggravating load was never identified, so the tendon never got the conditions to recover.

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