(Reuters) - Nearly two years after Dustin Johnson was knocked out of the Masters when he injured his back slipping on stairs on the tournament's eve, his caddie and brother Austin has broken a bone in his hand in a similar mishap.
Austin suffered the injury while packing up on Sunday night at the rental house where the brothers were staying at the Players Championship in Florida, world number one Dustin told reporters.
"He had a bit of a run-in with a pair of stairs, kind of like I did," Dustin said on Wednesday on the eve of the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Florida.
"Those stairs, man, they’ll get you."
Austin is not letting the injury prevent him from his professional duties.
He caddied in the pro-am at Innisbrook on Wednesday with his left arm in a sling and a cast on his wrist.
Dustin was the hot favourite at the 2017 Masters, as world number one and coming off the back off three straight victories.
The back injury, which he described as severe bruising, kept him out of action for a month.
(Reporting by Andrew Both in Cary, North Carolina; Editing by Toby Davis)