Green's return to golf marks latest chapter in healing

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Daniel Newcomb/Special to PGATOUR.COM

Sitting at his agent's pool in West Palm Beach, Fla., Ken Green must deal with the loss of friends and the loss of his lower right leg.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- When Ken Green gingerly stepped to the first tee last Sunday at the Breakers Rees Jones Course, he wasn't worried about his score.

"I was scared I was going to fall down," Green said.

But playing his first hole since having his right leg amputated just below the knee three months ago, Green didn't hit the turf while wearing his prosthetic leg. The five-time winner on the PGA TOUR was actually pleased with his nine-hole score of 3-over 39, no matter if it came from a combination of the red and white tees.

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Check out these photos of Ken Green taken on Sept. 16 in his hometown of West Palm Beach, Fla. Click here for photos

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It wasn't just the numbers he produced that made him smile. It was the setting.

"Being out on a golf course is where I have my most peace," Green said. "It felt good."

Green can use as much peace as possible these days. The Champions Tour member saw his world thrown upside down on June 8 when the RV he was traveling in blew a tire on Interstate 20 near Hickory, Miss. The RV veered off the highway, down a hill and smacked head-on into a tree.

Dead at the scene were Green's brother and caddy, Billy; his girlfriend, Jeanne Hodgin; and his German Shepherd, Nip, who Green had personally rescued from an alligator attack in 2003. Green somehow survived the wreckage -- he thinks because he was in the back of the RV when the tire blew -- but it wasn't for several days that he fully understood how his life had been changed.

"I lost my three best friends on the planet, there's no other way around it," he says quietly. "I know I'm lucky to be alive, but I miss them so much. It's awful. You cry all the time."

Less than two weeks after the accident, Green had to make an incredibly difficult decision. Doctors told him his right leg was so damaged, he was probably looking at multiple surgeries during the next few years and the leg still wouldn't work properly.

"Can I play golf with this leg?" Green asked the doctors.

When told no, Green didn't hesitate.

"Then cut it off," he said. "Because I'm playing golf again."

That's how much golf means to Green. He wants to be the first professional golfer to play with a prosthetic leg. But he learned from that mini-round last Sunday that a lot of healing has to take place for him -- physically and mentally.

"It kind of woke me up to realize this is going to be a harder battle than I anticipated," Green said. "There's a lot of things you don't even think about. (Getting in and out of) bunkers are a nightmare. You've got downhill lies, uphill lies, sidehill lies. And the swing itself is so far away from a professional golf swing. But I'm not worried."

Neither is his longtime instructor, CBS announcer Peter Kostis.

"Knowing how determined Ken is, and how much advancements have been made in prosthetics the last few years, I really think Ken can do it," Kostis said. "Losing his right leg is better than losing his left leg as far as the swing goes. We're going to have to make some changes, no doubt. It's just going to take some time."

Sitting on a couch, his legs crossed, Green reaches down to touch what is left of his right knee. He winces slightly due to the pain, but that's an improvement.

Last week Green had to be hospitalized for the first time since he returned to Florida because of searing pain in his right leg. Green insists it wasn't "phantom" pain, as some amputees experience, but rather intense pain from nerves. He had traveled from his sister Shelly's house in Ormond Beach, where he's been the last six weeks, to West Palm Beach to have a doctor inject his spine with medication to hopefully stop the pain.

"My whole body was shivering," Green said. "That's the only pain I've had, but it's pain that's stupid. I've never cried so much in my life. I don't mind being given this task, but I don't want pain to be my constant companion."

And there's the other pain that cannot go away through medicine: The loss of his brother, girlfriend and canine companion.

"I have pretty good faith in God and I know they're OK," he said. "But for selfish reasons, I'm having the problems because they're gone. Little things can set you off. You turn around to say, 'Baby,' but 'Baby's' gone. I refuse to let their deaths be meaningless. I have to do something."

Just exactly what that something is, Green isn't sure. He knows he's going to help the public profile of amputees by his quest. He also wants to raise money to help dogs in some fashion, a passion he shared with Hodgin. The 51-year-old Green knows one thing, though -- he has to do something constructive from here on.

"Otherwise, the rest of my life would be a failure," he said.

Green seemed on top of the golf world in the late 1980s. He won five PGA TOUR titles from 1985-89, finished No. 4 on the money list in 1988 and played in his first Ryder Cup. He was living the good life, not too concerned if it offended anyone else.

He used to hit golf balls through a sliding-glass door -- with a 3-wood, no less -- onto the adjacent Bear Lakes Country Club course just for kicks. He wore bright-green shoes, repeatedly tossed his driver to his caddie after good shots -- a move that infuriated many of his playing partners -- and took verbal shots at golf's establishment.

Green was paired with Arnold Palmer at the 1997 Masters when he had a buddy bring him a beer on the 15th hole. Why? "So I could say I once had a beer with Arnold," he explained.

But things quickly derailed. Green's marriage ended in a bitter battle that cost him most of his savings. He was diagnosed with clinical depression and soon suffered serious injuries to his shoulders and back.

His rapid rise to the top had been followed by an equally deep descent into golf's nether world. By 1996, he had lost full-exempt status. He didn't get his playing privileges back until he made it through q-shool in 2003, but injuries and a lack of confidence combined to limit his earnings to a paltry $180,000 from 1998-2006.

Green waited for the Champions Tour -- he finally turned 50 last July 23 -- knowing that was his last chance at resurrecting his career. What he didn't know, however, was how those many setbacks in the 1990s prepared him for the life-changing day.

Green said he remembers loading the RV on June 7 after finishing 37st at the Triton Financial Classic in Austin, Texas, and earning $8,480 to push his season total to $123,906. Already, that was his best year, financially, since 1996.

The plan was for Green, his brother, girlfriend and dog to take two days to drive to Hodgin's hometown of Greensboro, N.C., where they would hang out for a week before the Champions Tour season resumed in upstate New York.

Green also remembers exactly where the RV was parked that Monday morning and getting into the back of the vehicle to settle in for the day's ride. The last thing he remembers is hearing a loud sound.

According to witnesses behind the RV, the front right tire blew, causing the vehicle to swerve to the left, then back to the right, careening down a hill before it struck a tree.

"The mind has a way of shutting down when something horrific like that is happening," Green said. "I guess it's a very good thing I don't remember any of the accident. I wouldn't have wanted to see the faces of Billy and Jeanne while we were going off that road."

In the accident report, Ken Green was listed as the driver. But Ken insists Billy was driving (he says the routine was for Billy to drive during the day and Ken at nights). It makes sense that Green was in the back of the RV; otherwise he would have died like everyone else in the vehicle.

"I don't know why it bothers me -- it doesn't matter who was driving, because it was a blowout," Ken Green said. "But it does bother me because I know for a fact I wasn't driving. One witness thought it was me, but if you look at Billy and I, we look a lot alike."

Green knows he rubbed a lot of his fellow pros the wrong way with some of his antics during the years, so he admits he was taken back by the outpouring of support he received in the hospital. Palmer, his old beer-drinking buddy, called. So did Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. He received telegrams and letters from friends he hadn't seen in years, pro-am partners he hadn't met in decades.

"They would tell me how they had so much fun playing with me," Green said. "It's a small thing, but it makes you feel good and it gives you another reason to try and do something positive."

Going from being a professional athlete to someone who has difficulty getting to the bathroom obviously isn't an easy adjustment. Green says he doesn't understand the approach other disabled persons sometimes take, though.

"One thing I do disagree with is I know a lot of people who are handicapped, their main goal is to show they're the same as everybody else," he said. "I don't believe that. I'll never be the same. I'm not saying I can't accomplish something, but you have to understand: I will never be the same."

But he is emphatic when asked if he ever asks the obligatory "Why me?" question.

"That serves absolutely no purpose," Green says. "I've asked Him: You sure I'm the one you wanted to pick to accomplish whatever I'm supposed to do, because I didn't do so well handling some of His other goals.

"Obviously, I didn't like losing my friends. That's the hardest thing to cope with. The leg doesn't bother me; I'll get around that. Losing the people is the hardest."

Green said he didn't plan on playing golf last Sunday. He went to the Breakers thinking he was going to watch some buddies play, but changed his mind when he saw them warm up. He hobbled over to the range and hit a ball for the first time in 100 days.

"It was bizarre because I was hitting swings that were not even near a golf swing," he said. "You're hitting shots you hadn't hit since you were 15 years old. These low, skank-toppers. As the day went on, I kept hitting better shots. I'm still incredibly weak and have no strength. I was hitting the ball 30 yards short with my irons (120 yards with an 8-iron, for instance). But I played halfway decent, considering. My short game was still there."

So was the support. One of his best friends and agent, Kevin Richardson, said he had tears in his eyes when Green took his first swing.

"To see him stand on that first tee, settle in and take that first swing ... it was emotional tinged with excitement," Richardson said.

Green bogeyed the first three holes, but parred the next six for the 39. He parred the 10th and 11th holes before stopping because he became too weak.

"I was surprised to hear he was on the golf course so soon," Kostis said. "I think that's great. I just want him to have some fun and we'll start work on changing his swing when he gets stronger."

Dunn/Getty Images

Green's best finish in 2009 came at the AT&T Champions Classic, where he finished seventh.

Green admits he probably played the 11 holes too soon. "But that's what we as humans do," he said. "We have the patience of cucumbers."

Veteran PGA TOUR caddie Eric Larson, who got his start in the business when he carried for Green from 1991-94, said he thinks Green can make history by playing in a professional event with an artificial leg.

"I know he has a lot of hurdles to overcome," said Larson, who caddies for Anthony Kim. "But he wouldn't go out there to be a sideshow. I can promise you this: If it doesn't happen, it won't be because of a lack of effort."

Green had originally hoped to be ready to play when the Champions Tour starts its 2010 season next January. But he realizes that's not going to happen. He's still nursing ailing ligaments and tendons in his left foot, which has slowed his rehabilitation.

Kostis says he doesn't want to give Green a target date for his return because that would only add pressure to the situation. But because of the Champions Tour's rules regarding medical exemptions, the clock is running on Green.

Andy Pazder, the PGA TOUR's senior vice president of tournament administration, said Green is assured a spot on the Champions Tour until he turns 52 on July 23 because of his number of career PGA TOUR titles. But Pazder said Green doesn't qualify for the tour's major medical exemption category because he wasn't in the top 30 on the money list before his injury.

"He would be eligible for a special medical exemption, but most of the times, the 78-player field is filled before we get to that category," Pazder said.

Richardson already had looked into Green's future playing status and knows it's not ideal, but pointed out there are other options. "I think a tournament director would get a lot of goodwill by offering Ken a sponsor exemption," Richardson said.

But that's a long, long way away.

Green knows the next two weeks will be very emotional for him. Monday, his friends have scheduled the first of two tournament fund-raisers to help Green defray his mounting medical expenses. The event will be in Green's hometown of Danbury, Conn., at Ridgewood Country Club.

Close friend Mark Calcavecchia and Curtis Strange are spearheading the event, which will include pros from the PGA TOUR and Champions Tour, as well as Kostis and fellow CBS announcer David Feherty. Another fund-raiser will be held Nov. 23 at the Breakers Rees Jones Course in West Palm Beach where he's lived most of his adult life.

"Having them do that does the heart good and makes you realize you've got some wonderful friends," Green said. "And maybe you weren't such a bad friend, either."

Green's mental healing process will continue early next month when he plans to fly to Dallas to retrieve a German shepherd a former pro-am partner is giving him. Green said he's had offers from more than 20 people to give him a dog to replace Nip, but he said the time wasn't right.

Now he understands there was a different power at work.

"I'm flying out to Dallas, but I don't believe in flying dogs, so I'm driving us back to Florida," said Green, who first got behind the wheel of a car about a month ago. "That's when I realized I'll have to drive right past where the accident happened."

Green has yet to be back to the accident spot, but know he'll find it. "I'm going to Mile Marker 118 and look for a spot where a tree used to be," he said. "But I have no idea what I'll do when I get there."

That trip will be just another part of the healing process, a process that's so far amazed his friends.

"Ken's attitude has been incredible," Larson said. "I kind of let him pick his spots when he wants to talk about certain things. But there's nothing he won't talk about."

Richardson points out Green has benefited because he's had plenty of practice in the bad-luck department.

"Emotionally, he's handling it a lot better than I thought he would," Richardson said.

"Maybe the fact he has dealt with so much adversity in the past has helped him deal with this adversity."

Green said he enjoyed getting back on the golf course last weekend, but that only whet his appetite for more. He doesn't want to settle for being a scratch golfer playing on the weekends with his pals.

"It's all the way," he said. "This may sound bad, but if I only get to Level B, I'll still be playing, but I will be extremely disappointing. My intention is to go all the way back."

Craig Dolch is a freelance columnist for PGATOUR.COM.