Last Friday afternoon, while Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh and Mike Weir were in North Carolina playing in the Wachovia Championship, Boyd Summerhays was visiting his doctor in Utah.
Summerhays could have been playing with the big boys, should have been playing, except for one little problem. He can't hit golf balls right now.
The former child phenom who earned his PGA Tour card last winter, hasn't picked up a club for more than a month and likely won't for another week. He won't play in any tournaments for at least another month.
Just a few months into his rookie season on the PGA Tour, Summerhays is suffering the first real injury of his young life — inflamed bulging discs in his back that pinched against his sciatic nerve, giving him pain in his left side and down his left leg. He said he may have gotten the condition from long hours driving his motor home around the country with his wife, Barbara Jean, and their son, Preston, over the past year.
Yet despite missing his last five cuts on the Tour and sitting out two important months of his rookie season, Summerhays is his usual positive self.
"Everything's good — I'm about on schedule," he said. "I've had lots of physical therapy and hopefully by the end of the week I can start hitting balls again."
But what about missing six tournaments that could have gone a long way toward solidifying a position on the Tour for next year?
"There's nothing I can do about it," he said. "I know some people would be really bitter. But there's no complaints from my point of view. It's been a disappointment, but I'm feeling a ton better."
Summerhays has always been the most positive guy this side of Norman Vincent Peale. Since he was a youngster winning national tournaments, he's known he would play on the PGA Tour someday. Even when he seemed to lose his game following his two-year LDS mission to Argentina and many folks wondered if he'd ever make it, Summerhays never doubted.
Yet Summerhays made the surprising decision to quit Oklahoma State after his sophomore year, turn professional and start playing in mini-tour events and state opens, like the Utah Open, which he won in 2002. He won several mini-tour events last year, and in December he earned his PGA card for 2004 by tying for 26th at the PGA Tour Qualifying School.
Then the 24-year-old embarked on his lifelong dream of playing the PGA Tour in January.
He began his PGA Tour experience in Hawaii at the Sony Open where he opened with a sparkling 68, then shot a respectable 72 that included a triple bogey. Despite a two-round total of 140, Summerhays missed the cut by one shot.
Welcome to the PGA Tour, kid.
However in his next outing three weeks later, Summerhays made the cut at the AT&T at Pebble Beach and finished strong to tie for 25th. That earned him a tidy paycheck of $37,126 and put him at 104th on PGA Tour money list.
That was the last paycheck Summerhays received, however, and his position on the money list has been plummeting ever since. The latest numbers show him at 198th, well below the magic Top 125 number.
At the Buick Open in San Diego, Summerhays began with a 71, only to shoot a 76 and miss the cut by three. Two weeks later at the Chrysler in Tucson, he missed by one again, following his opening 69 with a 72. The next week at the Ford Championship in Miami, he shot three strokes worse the second day and missed the cut by two after double-bogeying the last hole.
Summerhays finally wasn't close at the Honda, shooting 76 and 74 to miss the cut by six shots. But there was a reason. His back hurt and he started feeling a pain shooting down his left side.
"I thought it was muscle spasms," he said. "I didn't know. I've never been injured my whole life. I didn't think it was serious."
He took a couple of weeks off before playing at the Bell South Classic in Atlanta. His pain got worse, and he missed the cut there by three strokes.
Summerhays returned home, got diagnosed and started treatment, doing physical therapy with local golf pro and therapist Henry White.
"Looking back, I shouldn't have played," Summerhays said. "But you don't think that at the time."
Although he can exercise, Summerhays hasn't been allowed to touch a club, not even a putter, which puts a lot of strain on a back from bending over.
Except for his mission, Summerhays has been playing golf on a regular basis since the age of 5. He won three Junior World titles before the age of 14 and at age 16 was ranked as the No. 1 junior golfer in the United States.
So to suddenly be laid up for a couple of months in the first year of his job has been frustrating to say the least for Summerhays.
"I've spent a lot of time working out and helping with my (21-month-old) boy," he said. "But I was bored from the first day."
The seven tournaments he did play were a valuable learning experience for Summerhays, who doesn't buy the notion that he would have been better off playing the Nationwide Tour for a couple of years before moving up to the big tour.
Summerhays has played practice rounds with Retief Goosen and his old buddy from junior golf, Charles Howell, and has hit balls on the practice range alongside Woods and Singh. But to him those aren't the highlights of his rookie season.
"I don't get all giddy and excited about playing with these guys," he said.
What has impressed Summerhays has been how nice most of his fellow golfers have been and how his wife has been accepted by the other tour wives. "We've been able to make some good friendships," he said.
Now it's just a matter of getting back out there. Summerhays hopes to be playing by early June at the Buick Classic in Westchester, N.Y. He also may take advantage of the Tour's rule that allows injured players to play a couple of events on the Nationwide Tour before returning to the regular tour. In that case, he could play at Knoxville, Tenn., in early June and in Illinois the following week before coming back.
Summerhays is the first to tell you he needs "some really good finishes," to earn close to the $500,000 he'll need to earn his card for next year. And he needs to get going as soon as he's physically able. But he's keeping it all in perspective.
"I'm only 24, one of the youngest guys out there. People seem to forget that. I know I need to be patient. It's almost like I'm an intern in a big company," Summerhays said.
"No matter what happens, I'm going to have one year of experience.
There's nothing better than actually playing on the PGA Tour to get experience. I realize how lucky I am to be getting some experience so young."
E-mail: sor@desnews.com