Wrist injury in Aussie golfer

[sydunisportsmed]

Good article from SI on James McLean, an Aussie golfer in the USA trying to qualify for the tour:

Rookie On Tour: PART SIX: An injury brings James McLean's year to an inglorious end. (Sports Illustrated Bonus Section: Golf Plus) John Garrity.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2003 Time, Inc.

Byline: John Garrity

When we last saw James McLean, it was the day before the Buick Open in late July, and he was beating balls on the practice range, inspired by a mantra that had recently been adopted by every PGA Tour rookie: "If Ben can do it, I can do it." That would be Ben Curtis, a fellow freshman who two weeks earlier had shaken up the sports world by winning golf's oldest championship on his first try. "I played with him in the final round at Q school, and he got his card a shot inside the number," McLean said as he stood idly massaging his sore right wrist on the practice tee at Warwick Hills Golf and Country Club in Grand Blanc, Mich. "Then he struggled all year, like I have. Now here he is, the British Open champion." McLean had more appreciation than most for what Curtis had accomplished because of their parallel experiences as rookies.

Before June 29, when he came in 27th at the FedEx in Memphis, Curtis had no top 30 finishes and was 173rd on the money list, 11 spots behind McLean. A month later, after finishing 13th at the Western Open and winning at Royal St. George's, Curtis was roughly $1.2 million richer and had risen to 22nd on the money list. McLean, in that same span, missed four cuts and finished 31st at the B.C. Open, pocketing only $16,650 and falling to a season-worst 176th in earnings. He admitted to a little envy. "It was Ben who won a major, not me. He's set for life, whereas my future is still uncertain," McLean said with a shrug. "That's how it is."

For McLean there will not be the kind of fairy-tale ending that Curtis has enjoyed. During the first round of the Buick, McLean winced his way to an 80, his worst score of the season. The wrist that had been bothering him on and off since the Houston Open in May finally gave out. "It hurts right at the top of the swing and right at the bottom," he said. "I was actually scared to take divots out there." As the summer wore on and the wrist alternately suffered soreness (bad) and caused numbness in his hand (worse), McLean continued to soldier on, largely cutting out practice to spare his fragile appendage. "When it started hurting, my attitude was, I've got to suck it up and play through it," he says. "Tape it and tee it up. A veteran with several exemptions might have taken a couple of months off to rest or even have surgery, but I didn't have that luxury."

Following that painful 80 at the Buick, McLean withdrew and flew home to Minneapolis for two weeks, hoping the wrist would heal with a little rest. Feeling better, he then flew to Knoxville, Tenn., to play in Fuzzy Zoeller's 18-hole charity pro-am, where he wound up partying with Chris Judd, J.Lo's ex-husband. ("He said she's awesome," McLean says. "That's all I got out of him.") The day after the pro-am McLean's wrist was so sore, "I couldn't even get the cap off the toothpaste," he says. At that point he flew back to Minneapolis and finally saw a doctor, at the Minneapolis Orthopedic Center, where injured Minnesota Vikings go to get patched up. The diagnosis: Untreated bone spurs had begun to calcify and were pressing on the nerves and tendons.

"The doctors were amazed that I played with it as long as I did," McLean says with what sounds like manly pride. Per doctor's orders, he hasn't touched a club since. For the last month McLean's hand has been in a cast to immobilize the wrist, and he is taking anti-inflammatories in an attempt to break up the calcification. The injury will be evaluated in two weeks. Best case is that the wrist has responded to treatment and he'll be ready to fight for his job at Q school in November. The sobering alternative is surgery, which would sideline McLean for six months or longer. (He is trying to secure a partial medical exemption from the Tour that would allow him to play up to a dozen events next year regardless of what happens at Q school.)

McLean has been assured that the injury is not career-threatening, but it certainly has been career-interrupting. "Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong this year," he said last week. "It's not how you dream about your rookie year. People tell me you learn from mistakes and from the bad times, so I guess I'm learning a lot these days."

Like how to brush his teeth and sign checks lefthanded. ("My signature looks like a five-year-old's," he says.) For McLean, 25, the last month and a half has been the longest he has gone without golf since he broke his right leg playing Australian rules football when he was 16. "I'm going a bit stir-crazy," he says. For exercise he is jogging four miles a day and occasionally playing tennis as a lefty with his girlfriend, Missy Kretchmer. Otherwise McLean has basically turned into an interior decorator, devoting much of his free time to shopping for furniture to fill up the new town house in suburban Oakdale, Minn., that he and Missy moved into in early August. So far the big purchase has been a comfy caramel-colored leather sofa. "I made sure I bought a really nice couch, because that's where I'm spending a lot of my time," he says ruefully. Having grown up in Australia with only four TV channels, McLean is now making a careful study of the hundreds available in the U.S. One thing he is careful to avoid is PGA Tour telecasts. "I get too frustrated when I see the guys on TV," he says.

There is one upside to all of McLean's downtime. "It's given me time to sit back and reflect on the year and think about what I've got to do next year to play to my potential," he says. In a game in which power is a huge advantage, his upside remains tremendous. McLean is still third in the Tour driving-distance stats, at 308.9 yards a pop. But even with that kind of edge in length he missed 13 of 18 cuts, with his best finish an 18th at Tucson. McLean was looking forward to a long off-season working on consistency and control with his irons and improving his erratic putting. It now looks as if he'll have to figure out those things on the course next year, where every week brings a new chance to be the next Ben Curtis. "I can't wait to get out there," he says. "I was proving to myself I could play week in and week out with these guys. Even though I felt as if I was playing average golf, I was fairly competitive. It's simply a matter of getting more comfortable out there. When that happens, I think I'll do pretty well."

[BOX:]

2002 Q SCHOOL REPORT CARD

JAMES McLEAN isn't the only '02 Q school graduate who has endured a tough year. With seven full-field events left, only 10 of last December's 38 grads are among the top 125 money winners who will be rewarded with a Tour card for 2004. What will be the magic number to buy job security? Jay Williamson finished 125th in 2002 with $515,445, and purses have gone up more than 15% since then.

MONEY BEST
RANK EARNINGS FINISH

1. Ben Curtis 37th $1,359,969 1st
2. Woody Austin 40th $1,314,988 2nd
3. Alex Cejka 54th $1,093,508 2nd
4. Carl Pettersson 62nd $938,296 2nd
5. Brenden Pappas 73rd $808,340 3rd
6. Brett Quigley 84th $626,629 4th
7. Dean Wilson 94th $584,345 6th
8. Paul Goydos 99th $557,672 6th
9. Richard S. Johnson 119th $434,154 3rd
10. Mark Wilson 123rd $425,518 4th
11. Jeff Brehaut 127th $419,526 10th
12. David Sutherland 130th $403,394 9th
13. Tom Gillis 135th $375,113 7th
14. Aaron Barber 136th $372,419 4th
15. Mike Grob 143rd $332,954 5th
16. John Maginnes 147th $295,788 5th
17. Mike Heinen 152nd $268,652 11th
18. Mathew Goggin 155th $252,907 20th
19. Scott Laycock 163rd $210,725 10th
20. John E. Morgan 165th $205,524 5th
21. Anthony Painter 166th $196,926 14th
22. Donnie Hammond 167th $193,243 23rd
23. Brian Bateman 169th $187,231 11th
24. Jason Caron 175th $164,732 15th
25. Brian Watts 183rd $134,905 22nd
26. Andy Miller 185th $126,370 31st
27. Chris Anderson 188th $123,918 36th
28. Dave Stockton Jr. 192nd $117,661 21st
29. James McLean 193rd $117,182 18th
30. Akio Sadakata 202nd $91,105 39th
31. Kenichi Kuboya 203rd $91,069 47th
32. Vance Veazey 208th $78,767 20th
33. Ken Green 213th $70,633 25th
34. Jeff Klein 226th $40,680 31st
35. Joel Kribel 227th $39,120 37th
36. Cameron Yancey 229th $36,290 56th
37. Bart Bryant 234th $24,226 50th
38. Brad Lardon 241st $16,400 39th

[linda8055]

interesting news article. Hope he gets better soon.