Maginnes: Around this time in 2005, I stopped being cool

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I'm not cool anymore, but you probably already knew that. I must have been once because I can recognize coolness in others. It just stopped applying to me a long time ago. The difference between being an ex-TOUR player and everyone else is that I can actually narrow down to the day when I stopped being cool.

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John Maginnes

If you just came in from mowing your yard in shorts and black socks pulled up to your knees you know that you aren't cool but you don't care. I still care a little bit, and that sucks.

For an audio piece that I do for a show called Talk of the TOUR on XM 146 I was reminded this week that the 2005 John Deere Classic was the last weekend that I ever played on the PGA TOUR.

Actually, that was a little tidbit that I had erased from my memory but the host of the show, John Swantek, thought that it was relevant enough to mention. Any ex-player who tells you that he doesn't miss playing is lying. Heck, there are plenty of you out there that I have told that same lie to in the past.

When John reminded me of the 2005 John Deere Classic, it brought back memories of how much that particular year took out of me both physically and emotionally. I was attempting to come back from elbow surgery, perhaps a bit too early, and I was in quite a bit of pain.

In fact, I only play a dozen or so rounds of golf a year now, and there is still pain. Today, though, there is also a liquid pain medication that helps tremendously. Some call it swing fluid, but I have never seen a commercial that utilizes that particular angle. The company is still using football-playing horses, for goodness sake. I should be in marketing.

In 2005, though, there was no crutch to help me get through the day. We won't discuss the nights; that is another story entirely. Quite frankly it may have been the loneliest year of my life.

When you are playing badly on the PGA TOUR you become the exact opposite of a pitcher throwing a no-hitter but the result is the same -- you are at the end of the bench alone.

Your phone stops ringing because your friends back home don't know what to say. Your friends on the road stop calling for practice rounds because they don't want to look at that ugly block cut you are hitting just so you can find it and finish a hole. It might be contagious.

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Michelle Wie in action during the 2005 John Deere Classic

And your family looks at you with something between sympathy and worry which is palpable but unspoken. Words of encouragement become hollow and sorrowful.

Only a TOUR player who has been through this can know exactly what it is like to fight dimpled demons and loose shamefully. To explain it is like trying to describe a divorce or a car wreck. Until you have lived the nightmare you can't relate.

So on Wednesday night of that week in 2005 I ran into Phil Blackmar at a great restaurant in Davenport, Iowa called Duck City. It may or may not still be there,but it was a favorite for TOUR players back in the day.

Phil and I had not only played together but had worked most of the previous year together on USA Network's coverage of early round action. Phil is a tremendous student of the game and his passion came through with every word on air. In the field was that teenage girl who could play back then and Phil didn't think that I could beat her.

We laughed about how I was playing. He, too, had been through some surgeries and shelved his bats. He knew that the end was near for me. I didn't have the power to attack or the wherewithal to adjust. Most importantly, though, I had lost my desire.

So when he proposed a small wager of my score against Michelle Wie's, I took the bet because my well-lubed ego had turned back the calendar and forgotten to tell my body. And believe it or not, the best golf I played all year came Thursday and Friday.

I shot 70 in the opening round and 67 on Friday. Not too bad for a one-armed broadcaster, occasional writer and sometimes entertainer. I even shot 68 on Saturday but faded badly on Sunday and finished well down the leaderboard. The $10,080 I earned was my only official money that year and quite probably the last check that I will ever get for hitting a golf ball.

Players, cool or not, find inspiration in the strangest places. All week long, or at least on Thursday and Friday, I thought about my bet with Phil. And although that was the only cut I made that year, I got some satisfaction out of the fact that I managed to find something briefly that I was certain was gone for good.

It turns out that I had already lost my mojo. One of the hardest things about not being cool anymore is remembering what it was like to be the Fonz.