Ever since 2001, golf has been a space odyssey for Bob May. Right after Tiger Woods invented the juggernaut in 2000 and bested May in a three-hole playoff at the PGA Championship at Valhalla GC, the best player in the world took great pains to explain how, when he was growing up in California, Bob May was The Man. May must surely wish that the pains hadn't become quite so literal.
On the 18th tee during the EDS Byron Nelson in '03, May's back went out. He attempted unsuccessfully to rehabilitate the injury with physical therapy but, in February '04, he resigned himself to back surgery. After that May didn't hit balls again until just before the qualifying school of '05.
Playing last year on a major medical extension, May finished second at the B.C. Open, good enough to secure his card for the rest of the abbreviated, by then, year. "The problem was," said May about his back, "I can't play that many weeks in a row. Once I got my card, I only had from B.C. to the end of the year to make money." He eventually finished 141st in earnings, and returned to Q-school in a successful attempt to improve his status for 2007. Finally back on track, right? Not so fast.
"Everything was going good," May said of his start to the season. "The day after AT&T at Pebble Beach, I went to the gym about 6 a.m. and about four minutes into cycling the hip locked up and the muscles went into spasm. That caused my back to go into spasm. I could hardly make it from the gym to the parking lot."
Naturally, he was concerned he had reinjured his back, but an MRI revealed no damage. In fact, doctors never did figure out what caused the problem in his left hip. "They think maybe the pelvis rotated and maybe a facet joint, or something, just hit a nerve and set it all off," May said. The result, however, was another untimely convalescence. The T-48 finish at the AT&T Classic near Atlanta was his first event since Pebble Beach.
"I just got back going again and [the injury] hits me," said May, whose opening-round 67 at TPC-Sugarloaf left him tied for second Thursday. "I could see if I was doing something with the kids, wrestling or trying to lift something improper, but when you're just going to the gym to work out and trying to better yourself, it gets real frustrating. I play two tournaments and get injured, so I'm in bad shape for the reshuffle. It has just been ongoing little problems. Hopefully, they'll all end."
To make matters worse, May has been fighting his insurance company, too.
"They're trying to say [the original back injury] was pre-existing so I've got to waste my time and I've got to waste their time to go to court and fight it," he said. "Well, [they said I] complained of pains and this that and the other thing. Every golfer on this range has complained of back pain. It never put me out for three years."
And all this time, you thought professional golfers' problems were different than those of the rest of us.