On Blood Clots, Ben Hogan, and Playing Pressure-free

It didn't hit me until I was standing on the 17th tee, just how well I was playing. I was two over for the round, two under for the back nine: by far the best 16 holes I'd ever played. Until that moment, I was playing extremely relaxed golf. It's funny how  a few days in the hospital with blood clots in your lungs can take the pressure off.

     Almost exactly seven days before, the pain in my chest came on very gradually, on my left side, near my rib cage. I noticed it mostly when I took a deep breath – I thought it was a pulled muscle. Or – I'd eaten a lot of tacos for dinner that night, so perhaps it was indigestion. I took some antacid, just in case.

     It was Labor Day weekend, so Mrs. Whiffler and I had taken advantage of the long weekend to do some backyard camping with the Golden Bear Cub. That night, I just couldn't get comfortable in the tent. It hurt worse when I laid down, so after tossing and turning on the thin camping mattress for a while I got up to go sleep in the house. "Is it your chest?" my wife asked with some concern (I'd mentioned the pain to her earlier). "No, no," I lied. "I just can't get comfortable out here."

     But I couldn't get comfortable inside either, and by 3:00 a.m. I was starting to get worried. But it was 3:00 a.m., so I was very reluctant to wake anybody up over what I was still convinced was nothing. Yet, just to be safe (and knowing my wife would kill me if I had a heart attack without telling her) I called the medical hot-line number provided by our insurance company. A few minutes later I was trudging out to the backyard: "Honey, wake up, I need you to take me to the emergency room." We phoned a neighbor to look after the boy and got in the car.

     Several hours later, at about the crack of dawn, we got the diagnosis. "Well, it's not a heart attack," the doctor said. See, I knew it! Then she continued: "But you have blood clots in your lungs. A pulmonary embolism."

     What!!?? That can kill you, right? How can that be!?

     She started asking me all kinds of questions. Have you been on any long plane rides recently? Have you had any recent surgeries or injuries? Has anyone in your family ever had this? No, no, and no. "What about sitting in a canoe for a couple hours," I asked (we had taken the canoe out the day before). "Does that count?" She shook her head. "It has to be for much longer, like six or eight hours, at least."

     Over the next few hours, days, and weeks, I learned a lot about pulmonary embolism. What generally happens is, when you sit for long periods of time without moving, blood pools behind your knees and starts to clot. The clots then break off, travel through your bloodstream, through your heart, and then get stuck where the veins leading to your lungs branch off and get very small. If the clots are big enough or there are enough of them, they can kill you. Genetic risk factors make you more susceptible, and certain diseases can cause them, as well.

     Later, I remembered David Bloom, a respected NBC correspondent who died from a pulmonary embolism in the early days of the war in Iraq. In his case, he spent day after day riding in a cramped military vehicle, even sleeping in it sometimes. Just a few days before he died, he consulted medical personnel complaining of cramping in his legs. They suspected blood clots, and urged him to seek immediate medical attention, but he ignored the advice. Soon he was dead, leaving behind a wife and three young daughters. (Blood tests later revealed that he was genetically at risk.)

     I also thought of Ben Hogan, one of my golfing heroes. Most people know about the near-deadly encounter he had with a Greyhound bus in early 1949. But not as many know that he almost died a second time, a result of blood clots he developed during his extended hospitalization. Between all the surgeries he had and all the time he spent confined to his bed, he was a prime candidate.

     In 1949, of course, without all the technology we have today, a pulmonary embolism was even more serious. In Ben's case, doctors performed a radical surgery to save his life and his legs. To keep more clots from traveling to his heart and lungs, they tied off some of the major vessels in his legs. His circulation was very poor from then on, which made it painful to walk and was the major reason he had so much trouble getting around a golf course. The fact that he won six of his nine career major championships after the accident – including going three for three in '53 – is nothing short of astonishing. (Photo: Hogan hits the famous 18th-hole 1-iron that led to his win in the 1950 U.S. Open at Merion;  Life Magazine)

     (For all the deserved accolades Tiger Woods got for winning the 2008 Open with stress fractures in his leg – I can't quite bring myself to say "broken leg," which I think sensationalizes things just a bit – I thought it was a shame that Hogan didn't get more mentions in that discussion.)

     Let me be clear: I was never close to death. The blood clots I had were not that serious -- they merely could have been. The bigger issue became figuring out why I got the clots, and making sure it didn't happen again. I'm happy to report, following extensive testing, that they've ruled out all the serious stuff that might have produced them. And later, we figured out that it's just possible that I got them from spending a sleepless night slouched down on the couch a few nights previously. Go figure. In any case, my recovery, at least for now, is complete. 

Besides finding a cause, my biggest concern during my three-day hospital stay was, "Will I be able to play in the 'White Lake Classic' this weekend?" The WLC is the annual golf outing/tournament my buddies and I have been staging for nearly 25 years. I've only missed it once before, and had no intention of missing it this time. Fortunately, the doctors cleared me to play just in time. Which brings me back to the 17th tee.

     Up until that moment, I had been playing stress-free all day. I was thrilled just to be there, which relaxed me, helped my focus, and freed me to putt aggressively on the recently aerated greens. As I lined up putts, I thought of Arnold Palmer and the balls-out putting style of his peak years. I didn't have a single three-putt all day – and I don't think I left any first putts short, ramming home the three-foot come-backers without fear.

     The shot I faced at 17, a par-3, was one I'd been nailing all day, the perfect 7-iron distance to the pin, which was up front in the narrow portion of the green, guarded by bunkers left and right. I took a deep breath, addressed the ball, and swung. In a strange way, it was almost a relief to see my ball take one hop into the left front bunker. Something was bound to go wrong, and now I had gotten it out of the way. Even though par was still a good possibility, I could afford a bogey, I reasoned, my first of the back nine. I played the sand shot about as well as I could; but missed the 15-foot putt. Bogey. (Photo: Serbo, Little Tommy, Keith, Scruffy, and the Whiffler with the WLC traveling trophy. Photographer: Rob "The Glacier" Twardock.)
     Not to stretch the Hogan analogy too thin, but I later realized that the Hawk himself once hit a bad shot in a clutch moment on the 17th hole – in the famous 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills. Deciding, uncharacteristically, to play aggressively to a front pin over water on a 55-yard approach on the par-5, he came up just short, drowning his chances to win what would have been a record fifth Open title (at nearly 48 years of age).

     In fact, in my study of golf history, I've marveled at how many of the greats hit bad shots in clutch situations. Even Palmer. Even Nicklaus. Even Tiger. Not to mention guys like Mickelson, Norman, and Snead. If nothing else, I was in good company -- and I still had a one hole to play and a chance for a career round.

     I've replayed that 18th hole in my head many times. Playing away from trouble on the right, I aimed my 3-wood for the left side of the wide fairway. Perhaps with a touch of adrenaline, I  made great contact and ran it through the dogleg into thick rough. As I'd been doing all day, I decided to play conservatively (what would Hogan do?). Realizing I'd need at least a five-iron to reach the green, I pulled a 6 from my bag just to make sure it got it out of the rough. I didn't. The club caught in the grass and the shot  traveled maybe 30 yards, just hopping into the first cut. This time, the ball was sitting up; the yardage was another perfect 7-iron, and I pured it. "Be the right club today!" I said in a moment of cockiness, thinking of Hal Sutton's famous words at the 2000 Players Championship. But it was too much. The ball hit the middle of the green, took a Tom Watson bounce, and ran onto the back fringe.

     From there I faced perhaps a 35-foot double breaker, which I stroked well but mis-read. It settled about three feet left of the hole. No problem, make this for a 76. All day long I'd just been ignoring the little aeration holes. But this time there was one particular, bigger-than-usual hole right in my line. At the start of the round, my friends and I had declared that moving balls out of the aeration holes would be allowed when we marked, but we made no consideration for holes in your line. I thought about asking for a ruling, but with the tournament title well in hand, it would have felt cocky. I decided to just ignore the hole.

     Again, Cherry Hills comes to mind, where 20-year-old amateur Jack Nicklaus faced a similar dilemma. Contending for the U.S. Open lead on the back nine on Sunday, young Jack faced a two-footer with an unrepaired ball mark directly in his line. Jack was so young and unseasoned that he wasn't sure if he was allowed to repair it (he was). And he was too intimidated by his legendary playing partner (Hogan) to ask. So he putted away – and missed. The mental effect of the miss was bigger than the stroke it cost him, and Jack was not a factor after that. (It was probably not Nicklaus's only mental error of the day, as Hogan was later quoted as saying, "I played 36 holes today with a kid – this Jack Nickalus – who could have won this Open by 10 shots if he'd known what he was doing.")

     So I hit it firm and hoped for the best. But the ball hit the little hole square and took a big hop to the left. I tapped in for double-bogey and a 77. Five over: a great round for me, perhaps tying my best-ever on a quality course. But it was not the 74 or 75 I had in my sights. (When I play the "what if" game in my head, sometimes I end up with 72!). And I won the White Lake Classic title by four strokes. 

Clearly, it was one of those situations where if you'd told me before the round I was going to shoot 77 and win by four, I'd have jumped for joy. Yet, I'm still haunted by what might have been.

     But it doesn't matter.
     What does matter is that I have a loving family, great friends, a wonderful tradition to be a part of, and clot-free lungs. And I learned (though not for the first time) that one path to playing quality golf is to value, in the moment, those things more than how many strokes you take. I'll be back for another shot at that 74, and I'll draw on this experience when the time comes. But even if I never get it, it's great to be a golfer – and even better to be alive.