By Melanie Hauser
PGATOUR.com Contributor
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — He almost didn’t get on the plane.
Honest.
He was nervous — scared even — of the next step. Of playing his first round of professional golf in a year. Of seeing if three surgeries in three years was enough. Of wondering if he could come back. Again.
“I was fearful of the unknown,’’ Paul Stankowski said. “This was different. I’ve won on TOUR. I know what I can do. I know I have the talent.
“But emotionally, I’d turned golf off.’’
Thursday, he turned it back on, shooting a 4-under-par 67 at Tournament Players Club at Scottsdale to settle in two shots behind leader Steve Lowery midway through the first round of the FBR Open.
“I’m encouraged,’’ he said. “I felt good.’’
He also felt worn out. “First day back, my feet hurt, I’m sore and I’m tired,’’ he said with a smile before heading out to prop up his feet and watch a movie.
A good tired. He had only played a dozen rounds before he got on the plane in Dallas and hadn’t broken par until his 10th round. A friendly one that that.
“A shot is a shot,’’ he said. “I knew I could hit those and it didn’t matter if it was in competition. The mind is the thing that has to come back. You need that to play out here. I probably never have been very solid mentally. It’s been my weakest link in the sense that I kind of just float around out here. I don’t really focus too much and I hit the ball real quick because if I stay over it too long, I’ll forget what I’m doing.’’
Stankowski is playing on his second major medical exemption in two years, having undergone his left wrist in May 2003 and August 2004 and on his left shoulder while he was rehabbing from a torn tendon in his left lower arm last year. He thought they were just going to clean out his shoulder. Instead, they found a tear in the labrum.
And that torn tendon? It happened in round one of last year’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am — his first tournament back from the ’04 surgery — so is it any wonder he was a little fearful? After all, two months ago, he couldn’t hold a golf club and he was contemplating a career change.
“I have a lot of ideas of what I want to do when golf is over and I was starting to think about it,’’ he said, noting he did a little work with The Golf Channel and with XM Radio. “I’d take one step forward, five back.’’
The difference this time around was PGA TOUR’s physiotherapy associate Troy Van Beisen. A friend in California helped Stankowski find him and he’s, well, worked miracles in the last few months.
“I found someone,’’ he said, “who saved my career.’’
Van Beisen does Active Release Technique (ART) and within a few months had Stankowski’s his hand moving as it should — without any pain. In addition, he worked on all the pressure points on his body to loosen him up and get him swinging freely. Even after the first wrist surgery, Stankowski was playing with a painful shoulder, which could have come, in part, from overcompensating for the wrist. He felt he came back too fast after his surgery in ’04 — he played at the end of the season and overseas.
And after his last rehab — he tore the tendon on the 16th hole at Pebble Beach and withdrew after round one — he was still in pain. “The pain wouldn’t go away,’’ he said. “They just said go out and deal with it.’’
When he couldn’t, he tried television and radio, but quickly found that wasn’t for him. “It was a lot of hard work,’’ he said. “I don’t know what Tiger or Vijay’s bread-and-butter shots are. I play with them, I don’t pay attention. But I can tell you what they’re thinking. But I liked the team aspect of trying to put together a broadcast and making it sound good or look good.’’
But he needed to give golf another shot.
“I missed the smells, I missed the guys, I missed the courses,’’ he said.
Enter Van Beisen. And Stankowski’s comeback.
He made the turn 4 under and got to 5 under with a birdie at the fifth hole — his 14th — but he gave it right back at the sixth.
“I’ve been home for so long, it was nice to …’’ he said, pausing. “I’m glad you’re not Roy Firestone. I might have started crying.’’
He didn’t. Not at the course anyway.
“I had no clue if I’d be ready,’’ he said. “I came out this week with zero expectations and when I got here and started hitting it better, I’m like ‘Okay, okay. Now I think I can do something here.’’
What does the future hold? He doesn’t know. He feels good. He’s playing well.
And he has one great comeback round under his belt.
“I’m just thankful to be out playing again,’’ he said. “It’s awesome.’’