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REBIRTH: Snedeker's breathing again, and his game has returned
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Published: August 21, 2009
GREENSBORO -- Last year, Brandt Snedeker chased the Masters title until he cried.
This year, the Masters caught Snedeker and gradually squeezed the oxygen out of his lungs. He might have cried if it hadn't hurt so much.
"I cracked a rib one day," he said. "I didn't go through my practice routine like I should have. It was real cold. I thought I pulled a muscle, like anything else."
Snedeker missed the Masters cut and the Hilton Head cut the next Friday. He returned to his Nashville home, where he discovered an injury unlike any other. He couldn't breathe or move, which triggered fears of some horrible injury. The cracked seventh rib, right side, made him feel something awful.
He had TV, books and newspapers but not his favorite pastime, Vanderbilt football. At first, he had prescription drugs.
"I understand why people have addiction problems with pain killers, because they're fantastic," Snedeker said. "They're the only thing that got me through the first three, four weeks. The first day was miserable. I think I had a hiccupping episode and had to go to the hospital, it was so bad. Just no fun."
He watched the Charlotte tournament and the Texas swing, which induced an empty sense of deprivation. He loves those events. He hates confinement.
"I was stuck in my condo," Snedeker said. "I think my wife almost killed me through the fifth week. She was itching for me to get back out on the road."
Two months after Hilton Head, Snedeker finally scratched the itch. His blank season -- seven missed cuts in 10 events, only one finish higher than 42nd -- eventually started filling up. He tied for fifth at the Tiger Woods Open outside D.C. and tied for second at the John Deere tractor pull in Illinois.
At the Wyndham Championship yesterday, the cup nearly overflowed. Snedeker shot a 6-under-par 64, tying Chez Reavie and Ryan Moore for the lowest score in the still-unfinished opening round.
Snedeker's surge, interrupted by the threat of lightning for four hours with just over one hole remaining, further lifted his soaring spirits and his tour status. He stands 77th in money ($862,000), 75th in playoff points and 99th in the world rankings, and he's the first to acknowledge a blessing in disguise.
That's Snedeker's nature, perhaps, and that's a natural reaction to one of the PGA's strangest seasons. He made most of his money in three big checks. He has missed 12 cuts in 19 events. He missed cuts in all four major championships, a quirk matched by only three other players (Briny Baird, Michael Campbell, D.J. Trahan).
Snedeker, 28, tends to see the sunny side of the fairway, especially in Greensboro. He won the 2007 tournament, the last played at Forest Oaks Country Club before the return to historic Sedgefield. His only tour victory fueled a charge toward the playoffs, a No. 17 finish on the money list ($2.8 million) and the rookie of the year award.
In a logical commercial twist, he became a corporate poster boy for sponsor Wyndham's resort properties. He wears the company logo on his shirt while walking on the property.
"It's my fifth major," Snedeker said. "I've got to play good."
When he returned to Greensboro last year, the defending champ looked up and saw his larger-than-life image on a billboard. "A little weird," he said. This year, no billboard, but someone showed Snedeker a Wednesday ticket embossed with his photo. "That was a little weird, too," he said.
But he can handle weird, and just about anything else. In 2008, for instance, Snedeker played in the final Masters group on Sunday but slipped to a 77 and tied for third. Exasperated and emotionally exhausted, he wept. After tying for ninth at the U.S. Open, his touch evaporated. He wound up 59th on the money list, a retreat that continued into June.
Despite that, Snedeker remembers 2008 as a season marked by great strides. "My putter left me," he said. "I putted bad the rest of the year. I couldn't put together a good week. Leading into this year, it kind of got the rest of my game there. Anybody will tell you that when you're not putting good, it puts so much pressure on the rest of your game. You start not having any fun out there. You're not fun to be around for a couple of weeks or a couple of months."
The putter warmed up. The rib healed. Snedeker started having fun again, and Vanderbilt hasn't even kicked off yet.
■ Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com.
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