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| Swinging pain-free: Zach Barlow made match play earlier this year in the U.S. Amateur Public Links, another step in his process of improving with each event he plays. (Robert Walker/USGA) |
By Ken Klavon, USGA
Tulsa, Okla. – Zach Barlow sat at the end of the bed unaware of the tumult that awaited.
A prepubescent then, the words ravaged him like a broadhead arrow ripping through its target.
“My grandma’s like, ‘Your back is crooked,’” said Barlow Sunday after getting in a practice round at Southern Hills Country Club.
Barlow, in the ironic twist, was in the midst of competing in the Pepsi Little People’s Golf Championships in Quincy, Ill., in the late 1990s when the words were spoken. Golf had been his life to that point. He lived and slept it ever since being introduced to the game at Pyramid Oaks Golf Course, owned by his grandfather, Don Todaro, at age 2.
He had won the Pepsi Little People’s event in 1996, in the 8 and 9 Boys Division, and again in 1998 in the 10 and 11 Boys Division. But those words. Oh, those words seemed like a death knell.
Two weeks later, Barlow saw a specialist in St. Louis. The doctor confirmed he had scoliosis, a condition more common in females that causes an unnatural curvature of the spine. Barlow was diagnosed as having a 35-degree curve. He was told surgery would be the best option if the curvature ever exceeded more than 50 degrees. Every six months he got checked, all the while never feeling any pain except when he putted, and every six months his condition deteriorated. Finally in November 2002, a month short of his 17th birthday and a sophomore at Trico High School, Barlow had no choice. He faced surgery after his spine was curved 62 degrees.
At roughly 120 pounds and still growing, there was risk. The doctor never really addressed the prospects of playing golf again. Quality of life mattered more. But Barlow knew the stakes were high.
“Oh, absolutely,” said Barlow, now 22, of Percy, Ill., a former coal-mining town that boasts about 900 residents. “Golf was pretty much everything then, and still is now. In Percy, there’s not a whole lot to do and I thought there might be a good chance I’d never play again.”
Barlow’s caddie this week and former junior golf adversary, Jesse Barge, of nearby Murphysboro, Ill., had the same reflection then. The two had practically grown up together. They met through competitive golf at 5 – both admitting that they were adversarial. Barge’s acuity got the better of him. He recalled Barlow at 7 wearing a straw hat with a big brim and using a pull cart when everyone else was carrying their own bag. It just didn’t rub him the right way. Silly notions of others at that age melt away with a fond episode that breaks the ice. They forged a tight bond at “10 or 11” on a Florida trip to the Optimist International Junior Championships.
They’d fool around in hotels, putting for fun down hallways. They have grown so close through the years that Barlow introduced Barge to his cousin. The couple married April 4.
“It was kind of scary then, to be honest,” said Barge, 24. “That’s a surgery that could literally make or break a career.”
The odds of recovering to play high-level golf following scoliosis surgery weren’t in Barlow’s favor. If he needed inspiration, he could have looked to 24-year-old Stacy Lewis, a former USA Curtis Cup player and LPGA Tour member, who underwent the same surgery as a senior in high school and rebounded to start a promising career as a professional golfer.
After the doctor cut him open, two 1-foot steel rods and 20 screws were inserted between both shoulder blades. Two inches were added to his height. Barlow was given a videotape of the surgery. He finally summoned enough gumption to watch several weeks later.
“I don’t know if gross is the right word,” said Barlow. “Shocked might be it. Shocked that they were doing that to me. It was hard to believe that it was me lying there.”
Six weeks later, Barlow began doing light chipping and putting. He pushed himself. Six months after the procedure, he played a full round. That’s when he noticed a difference immediately when putting since the act is more shoulder induced than anything else. “I didn’t think I’d have near the mobility as I do now,” said Barlow, gracious with Midwestern politeness.
Soon he improved. He knew there was little, if any, residual pain. He lost the sensitivity in his back. Barlow could pursue his golf dream of perhaps one day playing on the PGA Tour. In his senior year of high school – en route to achieving four varsity letters in golf - he made the first of several 90-minute rides to St. Louis Country Club to take instruction from noted head professional Steve Spray.
“He completely revamped his homemade swing,” said Barge, who played golf at Southeast Missouri State. Before, Barlow had employed a baseball-style grip. He was weaned away from it and applied a more natural crossover grip. Success came at the state level first. As a junior at the University of Illinois, he won last year’s Illinois State Amateur, using it as a springboard to a victory at the Olympia Fields/Fighting Illini Invitational. This year he won the Marshall Invitational in Huntington, W. Va.
At the prestigious Western Amateur earlier this month he finished runner-up to John Hahn. It was an important lesson, he said, because the success has taught him that he can compete with the crème de la crème.
Barlow enters the week teeming with confidence, citing his short irons and putting as strengths. He’s on the short side off the tee, averaging in the neighborhood of 280 yards. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t like to set expectations, instead preferring to build on a burgeoning career.
Should he go far this week, it’s still a bonus where his health is concerned.
“I feel very fortunate,” he said before bustling off after the dream he continues to pursue.
Ken Klavon is the USGA's Editor of Digital Media.E-mail him with questions or comments at kklavon@usga.org.
