DUBLIN (Ohio) – Brandt Snedeker could not hit any of the five milkshakes that were placed on a stand just 10 yards away from him on Tuesday’s driving range at Muirfield Village Golf Club. Snedeker was taking part in a charity timed competition and asked, “How much more time do I have?” I’m better.
Snedeker smoked two milkshakes at the club, which I thought was a waste. He hasn’t competed in a PGA Tour tournament since the Fortinet Championship, in Napa, California in September, when the season kicked off in 2022-2023. This is after he had surgery to repair his sternum in December.
Snedeker was diagnosed with a sternum problem in 2016. He spent the majority of the six years following that diagnosis traveling to South America for stem cell treatment. He was still in constant pain, and Tylenol Advil and steroids could only do so much. This had restricted his driving to the point where he could not even drive when he got home.
He said, “I would have to save up the money until I left.” It had just taken over my life.
Snedeker rested for eight week and decided to compete in the Fortinet Championship back nine months. He was fine until the second day, when he began to feel a knife-like pain every time he breathed. He was able to make the cut, and he persevered throughout the weekend. He finished T-59. But he decided he could not continue on this path. The decision to have surgery was made.
Snedeker replied, “Or else we’ll have to do something else.”
Brandt Snedeker walks with Larry Fitzgerald, left, and Heidi Ueberroth off the 10th hole during the Workday Golden Bear Pro Am of the Memorial Tournament held at Muirfield Village Golf Club, Dublin. (Photo by Joseph Scheller/Columbus Dispatch).
It’s easier said than done. Snedeker was suffering from manubrium, which is a rare disease in Canada with limited surgical options.
Snedeker stated that “to say it is a rare thing would be an understatement.”
Dr. Burton Elrod is an orthopedic and sports medicine doctor in Nashville, Tennessee. He performed a chest strengthening procedure on NFL quarterback Steve McNair, but swore to never perform it again due to the infection risk.
Snedeker admitted that he “convinced him to do one more” of the experimental surgery in which a bone was taken from his hip and inserted into his sternum. “He said, ‘This will be the last one. ‘”
The December 1 surgery, which left a six-inch mark on his body, was deemed a success. Snedeker spent four weeks in his recliner, feeling “like someone had hit me with an enormous Mack truck”, and did not play golf until April 1. He went on trips he had always wanted to take, like to the Bahamas, where he met Jack Nicklaus for a half-hour fishing conversation, and he enjoyed being a father full-time. Snedeker also came to a major realization: “I’m still too young for retirement,” said Snedeker.
He had marked this week’s Memorial in his calendar. After playing every day the last two months and not experiencing any setbacks, he said he was ready to return to “the one job I’ve ever really had.”
He said: “I was thinking, you know what? Gotta jump in the deep end some time.” “Until you do it every day, for a week or a month, I will not know. But so far, everything is going well.”
His goal hasn’t altered.
“Just win, baby,” he said. “I know how to do this.” I am not a fool. “I did it once, I can do this again.”
