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Well, I had my 4th back surgery last Tuesday the 9th, and now a week later I am able to sit up and get some things done for the website. For those of you who were unaware of my condition I will give a little background.
My back began to give me trouble way back when I was playing for the team at Wake Forest in 1976-77, but the problems were short lived and didn’t seem like much of an issue at the time. After I transferred to LSU I suffered a bizarre injury to my sternum which cost me 6 months of playing time. Luckily those 6 months were during the year I had to sit out after transferring anyway, and it seemed to correct itself over time. Indeed, when I returned to playing I found another gear altogether and made 1st Team All-America, winning the SEC and finishing 3rd in the NCAA. The chest problem came back my senior year and wasn’t resolved until I underwent an experimental (at the time) surgery to fuse the Sternal- Manubrium Joint, a procedure recently undergone by former PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman.
The debilitating nature of the injury left me unable to maintain my normally high level of strength and fitness, and as a result my back issues returned with a vengeance. I was living in Orlando and playing the mini-tours when I had to have my first back surgery, a laminectomy to correct a herniated L-5/S-1 disc. The procedure went well, but without the kind of rehab advice that is routine these days I was back to beating the crap out it after about 6 weeks of rest. I kept trying and made it to Q-School finals in 1985, but the whole thing went haywire right before I was supposed to play and I didn’t even come close to making it. I quit trying to play for a living after Q-School, got divorced (my wife couldn’t put up with me being injured and miserable all the time) and moved to Atlanta to live with my old college roommate. Within a year the pain had returned and gotten worse, and as it turned out that disc had re-herniated while the disc directly above it, L-4/L-5, had also herniated. It was obvious to the doctors that my spine was inherently unstable and that these things were going to keep happening unless I had a fusion of both the herniated discs, which I did in 1986.
I spent over a year on the mend and away from golf, and then lucked into a teaching job up in New York on Long Island even though I had almost no experience except at the Arnold Palmer Junior Camp at Bay Hill in Orlando. I wrote a letter to a club looking for a teaching pro and fortunately for me the pro’s wife read the letter, felt particularly sorry for me (my English degree coming through like a charm!) I slowly began playing again while I was teaching, and in the winter of 1988 went back to Orlando to give the mini-tours another try. I guess you can’t say I wasn’t motivated. Unfortunately the pain returned again and I never hit a shot in a tournament, opting instead to have another surgery which carved out some the fusion bone which had grown into the nerve root openings (thus laminectomies again on both discs) and also removed the titanium rods which had been used to help the original fusion heal correctly. Needless to say, that was all she wrote for my playing career, and I ended up back in Long Island teaching for one more season before quitting the game altogether for the real estate business. I passed the test for my real estate license just as the market was being absolutely crushed by the S&L scandal, and needless to say I could never make a dime in real estate. I lasted about a year before being forced back into teaching, this time at a local club (Woodholme CC in Baltimore) and by now had jettisoned any remaining thoughts I may have harbored about playing the game for a living.
The good news was that I now found teaching enjoyable, and also that I was pretty good at it. I had always studied Hogan as a model, and that along with other knowledge picked up along the way gave me ways to actually help people hit the ball better. The other thing that I found was that my playing experience allowed me to mentor students in every part of the game, not just the mechanics of the swing. I had always had dreams of being a great player, but now at least I could help others in their own quests. After a year or two I began to play in some club pro events in my local section, and as I got back into playing mode I found that my skill level, even with all the physical issues, was high enough to make me competitive against guys who worked for a living like I did. Not having the ball and chain of having to make a check to put food on the table helped me play my best and enjoy it, although it wasn’t long before I found myself grinding just as hard to win at my level as I would have on the PGA Tour. I won my State Open 3 times, my Section Championship 3 times, was Player of the Year in my section 4 times, and qualified for 5 PGA Championships by finishing in the top 20 of the National Club Pro. I had my one great, magic moment in 2001 when I led the tournament wire to wire at the Crosswater Club in Bend, Oregon to become the PGA’s National Champion.
My back problems still accosted me at random times, and I was just as likely to have to withdraw from an event as I was of winning it. My last good year was 2007, when I won my section championship at age 49 and my senior section championship 2 weeks later after turning 50. I ended the year finishing 3rd in the Senior National Club Pro, and it looked as though I might be able to have a fruitful senior career. Alas, it was not to be, as my back stiffened up in general and I became increasingly unable to make the swings necessary to win at the highest level. Fast forward to 2014, and as the National Championship approached in Myrtle Beach in June I was actually playing well enough to where I thought I might be able to finish in the top 20 and make one more appearance in the PGA Championship. I played an excellent practice round two days before the event, but in the pro -am the day before the first round I could tell something was up, and it was not good. Sure enough, the day of the first round (I was scheduled to tee off at 2:15) I woke up sore and went out to the range at 10 am to see how things felt. I started with the smallest of wedge shots, and each one sent a stabbing pain down my right leg. I tried for a few minutes but it was a no-go, and I withdrew right then so that an alternate could take my spot. I went back to the room to drown my sorrows in a 6 pack of I.P.As and with my caddy and business partner Rick settled in to watch the final round of the Traveler’s Championship, the PGA Tour event being played that week in Connecticut. I had just seen Kevin Streelman face-to-face for the first time that weekend, and he had shot a nice 64 to get himself at least within sniffing distance of the lead. You probably know the rest, as Kevin birdied the last 7 holes to beat Sergio Garcia and Aaron Baddelly, so as it turned out what could have been one of the worst days of my career turned into one of the best.
I decided right then that I was tired of living with a deteriorating lower spine, so I did all the research I could and saw every expert I could come up with before deciding to have one more surgery. The techniques 25 years later are far less invasive and offered me some hope of relief, if not for playing better golf than at least for a better, more enjoyable life. In all the time that people pegged me as being too serious, or antisocial, or just plain ornery no one ever asked me why. I decided way back that I would never complain about my problems, and that I would simply concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward. I had to manage my time as best I could to be a father, a teacher and a player, and that didn’t leave much time for idle chatter. If I am blunt or seem uncompassionate it is only because I believe that the only constructive thing to do is figure out how to make the best of whatever situation you are in. When you fail it gives you the foundation upon which to improve. If you choke it’s only because you put yourself in a position to do so with excellent play. When you miss by a shot you need to improve by 3. When you head out to the course or to the range your goal should be to improve, period. I had this surgery so that I could improve, mostly as a person. Chronic pain colors your entire demeanor, and it never goes away. It is difficult to stay away from drugs that artificially elevate your mood but inevitably ruin your body. I would like to be less grumpy in my old age. I’m sure my wife would agree with that. One thing you can be sure of, though, is that when Brandel Chamblee starts in on Tiger I’ll still be all over it, and I will never pull any punches.
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