Shouldering the pain no longer Cockerill elected to repair torn labrum mid-season that was impeding backswing By: Mike McIntyre Posted: 3:25 PM CDT Thursday, Jun. 4, 2026

Manitoba’s top professional golfer is on the mend.

Aaron Cockerill has been playing through shoulder pain for the past three seasons on the DP World Tour, hoping to keep it in good enough shape to continue swinging for success.

The Stony Mountain product recently reached the point of no return as his game began to falter, leading to a decision to go under the knife and put his career on pause.

“It’s just slowly been deteriorating,” he told the Free Press on Thursday from his Winnipeg home.

“I’ve been doing the exact same physio stuff, but it’s gotten worse. I was losing club head speed, like down four miles an hour which is 12 to 15 yards, and just getting mentally frustrated with it as well. I’d say it was about 75 per cent physical and 25 per cent mental at this point.”

Cockerill had a torn labrum repaired Monday at Pan Am Clinic and now faces a six-to-eight-month recovery and rehabilitation process.

The 34-year-old had played in 12 tournaments during the 2026 season, missing six cuts. His best finish was a tie for 18th in Kenya in February, and he currently sits 151st in the DP World Tour standings.

He lost his full-time card after finishing 120th overall last season, with only the top 115 retaining unlimited status. That came one year after a breakthrough 2024 campaign in which he finished 49th and earned nearly $1.5 million in Canadian dollars.

Ironically, that’s when his problems began.

“Every time I would make a backswing I would hear and feel it.”

“It was around Christmas time in 2023 and I was training at home, in the gym, and when I went back to prep for the start of the 2024 season, I had a big click and a pop in my left shoulder,” Cockerill said.

“Every time I would make a backswing I would hear and feel it. I went to the Tour doctors, they made me get an MRI and I’ve known since the start of 2024 that it was a torn labrum.”

Rather than immediately undergo surgery, Cockerill elected to take a wait-and-see approach.

“I played the first tournament of the year and finished fourth. And I kind of just kept rolling and ended up having a good year. I was doing rehab on it, felt like it was getting better, and so I just kept playing,” he said.

“I think it affects everyone different. Some people might be barely able to move their arm and would need surgery right away. Some, it might not even bother them. And I had times, honestly, where it didn’t really bother me. And then other times where it became a big pain, like hitting weird shots.”

Those issues became more frequent in recent weeks as Cockerill struggled to find any sense of consistency. Good rounds were often followed by poor ones, and even strong stretches within a round could suddenly unravel.

“Another thing, too, is I was trying to kind of make a little bit of a change in my golf swing, and I just wasn’t physically able to get my left shoulder the way I wanted to at the top of the backswing,” he said.

Cockerill and his wife, Chelsea, have also been juggling life with two young daughters while living far from home. The family had been based in Dubai to be closer to most DP World Tour events, but they fled in March after escalating hostilities between the United States and Iran disrupted life and travel across the region.

Now they find themselves on familiar ground here in Manitoba while facing a somewhat unfamiliar future.

Cockerill has been granted a medical exemption that effectively puts his current season on hold. He can resume it when he returns, likely early next year.

“It’s a bit complicated, but the easiest way to put it is: however many tournaments I would have gotten into the rest of this year (with his partial status), I will get that many tournaments next year, when healthy. I’m guessing that would be about eight,” he said.

“And then those points would be added to my points already from this year to see where I would have placed on the final money list to determine my status (for 2027). So I will need to play well when I come back. Hopefully the stability and speed will come back and I’ll just be in a better place for when I start back up again, probably around February.”

Cockerill has no intention of rushing the process, though.

“I haven’t really had an actual break away from golf since I started playing pro 11 years ago.”

One silver lining is the opportunity to spend quality time with his family, something that is difficult when travelling the globe and competing nearly every week.

“You know, I haven’t really had an actual break away from golf since I started playing pro 11 years ago,” he said. “I’m going to try and actually put the clubs away for a few months and just do normal stuff with the girls.”

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