HE HAS HAD TO CHANGE to a baseball grip, and he doesn't have the use of his right thumb at all, and at least a third of his right arm is just along for the ride. If you asked him to swing a door open to the side and hold it there, he'd be in big trouble.
So how is Jim Nelford able to still play scratch golf? "I improvise," he says.He says it smiling. He says it like he's happy to be swinging a golf club, period. He says it like a person who has considered the alternatives.
"When I went in for the operation," he recalls, "I told the doctor, `hey, look, I'm a golfer. Just form my right hand so it can cup around a club and I won't be bothered.' "
Jim Nelford is living proof that Time plus Crisis equals Humor.
"I couldn't laugh about any of it back then," he says, recalling the water-skiing accident in September of 1985 that nearly ended his golf career and his life. "I didn't want to see people. I didn't know who I was. If I wasn't going to be Jim Nelford the Golfer, who was I going to be?"
One minute he was a prominent member of the PGA Tour. The next he was dragging a right arm broken in nine places to the emergency room.
It got worse before it got better.
"The most uncomfortable I've ever been in my life was at the benefit they had for me in Las Vegas," he says, referring to a fund-raiser/testimonial that was organized by his many friends - both from the tour and from his days at BYU - and was held in 1986.
"I didn't know if it was a eulogy or what," he says. "I know I was uncomfortable with the pity. I thought, is this all I'll ever be - a former self?
"I can look back now and laugh, but I didn't want to be there at all. The $25,000 (that was raised) was appreciated very much by my doctor, and by me, and it was a terrific gesture, but, still . . . pity's no good. Wallow in self-pity and that's what you'll be - pitiful."
Nelford didn't play competitive golf again until 1987, when he prematurely rejoined the PGA Tour (he had been granted only a one-year medical extension) and promptly lost his exempt status. He slid to No. 182 on that year's money list. That he could play at all, with his new grip and his re-tooled arm held together with 13 metal screws, was remarkable. But if there's one place where you don't have to worry about pity it's on the Tour when the top 125 exempt list is in question.
With more rest and a lot of strengthening workouts, his goal now is to get back to fulltime status on the PGA Tour. Competitions like this week's Utah Open are halfway houses along the way.
"I'd like to get back where I was. I'd like to get back out there and compete with the best," Nelford says. "Everything's a challenge in life. This happened to be a little bigger challenge than I would have wanted. I remember when I thought just trying to play on the PGA Tour was challenge enough.
"Hey, I realize a lot of people have a lot harder challenges than this. It's just that from where I was, it was a long way to fall.
"The one thing that's helped me is I've made it a point to never look back. It's been a case of `What have I got left and where do I go from here?' "
He has received offers from a number of golf clubs to be a director of golf, and he has done some TV commentating in his native Canada, and he has dabbled in golf course design. Steady jobs are out there if he wants them.
"But I've got to give myself a chance," he says. "I've definitely got to give myself enough time to see if I can get back on tour.
"I'm doing it because I want to, not because I have to, and I'm enjoying the journey. I'm enjoying it more now than before. Every bogey and every bad shot doesn't hurt so much. I guess I am wiser because of what's happened."
He guesses he's fortunate, too.
"Looking back on the accident, another inch or two and I could have been dead," he says, "and another milimeter or two and I couldn't have ever used my arm again. I've been lucky enough. If there's a way to get back, I'll get back."
Or, at the least, have a good time trying.