Wittenberg seeks redemption
Casey Wittenberg walked toward the 14th green at TPC Southwind late Monday afternoon, not far from the house beyond the driving range in which he grew up, and summed up professional golf as he’s come to know it.
“For every year you’re not playing on the PGA Tour, it’s losing two years of your career because this is where you want to play,” he said through his sunglasses. “You compound that over multiple years in a row, and you can kind of get stuck in a rut. The older you get, the more baggage you collect.”
It was then that Wittenberg, one of the few Memphis natives in this week’s FedEx St. Jude Classic field, confirmed 2013 was the last time he held a PGA Tour card.
Sandwiched around that year is a career that began with unbelievable promise, got derailed by the weight of expectation and injury, and could perhaps be jump-started if Wittenberg can find his way on the golf course he knows better than any other.
These days Wittenberg is a 34-yearold journeyman with a balky back playing his first PGA Tour event in more than two years thanks to a hometown sponsor’s exemption from FedEx St. Jude Classic officials. He’s earned more than $2.5 million professionally, which is a little less than what the winner of next week’s U.S. Open will take home.
Considering Wittenberg estimates his weekly expenses on the Web.com Tour are between $3,000 and $3,500, it’s an existence that can test a golfer’s will.
“It’s just a hard job, man,” Wittenberg
said. “Not to discredit what other people do for a living, but this is about as cutthroat as it gets. Every year, you start from square one. One shot a day, four shots a tournament, that’s hundreds of thousands of dollars earnings difference in a year. It’s just a fine line.”
“I’ve been very fortunate to play some good golf throughout my career,” he continued. “I unfortunately haven’t done it at the PGA Tour level as much as I would’ve liked, but it’s hard and you have to take advantage of the opportunities that you have and execute when you have those opportunities.”
A prodigy encounters problems
Wittenberg was considered a prodigy at the turn of this century despite being listed at 5-feet-8 and 158 pounds. He had a father who played on the PGA Tour, a textbook swing, a bag full of tournamentready shots and an insatiable desire to live up to all the hype.
He left Memphis to play at the exclusive Leadbetter Golf Academy before moving on to Oklahoma State for college. By 2003, he seemed to be a burgeoning star bound for the PGA Tour after making it the U.S. Amateur finals and finishing 13th at The Masters, the lowest finish by an amateur in 41 years.
He turned pro a year later. But the path he took ended up becoming the root of his current issues.
Wittenberg’s back problems began in 2014, after he led the Web.Com Tour in earnings in 2012 and earned his PGA Tour card for the 2013 season. His L-5 and S-1 veterbrae are “bone on bone,” he said, from playing a professional schedule since the age of 15.
It’s the cause of endless frustration. He doesn’t have as much flight on his shots. He’s considered fusion surgery, like Tiger Woods went through, but the risks are too great for Wittenberg to consider at this point.
So he’s only played five Web.com Tour events this season, although he did appear in the past three tournaments in anticipation of his return to Memphis this week.
“People always come to you and say, ‘Just play the way you did in 2012,’” Wittenberg said. “I promise you I would if I could. You lose mobility as you get older in golf and things just change. Ways you used to swing when you were younger, you just have to find a different way to do it.”
A chance for 'a dream come true'
But the mental fortitude that put Wittenberg on a pedestal at a young age is still there, and the naivete is gone. He lives in Birmingham, Ala., with his wife but frequently comes back to Memphis.
It’s why he wants so badly to play well in front of the hometown crowd this week, to prove that there’s still something left in the tank, that he’s capable of overcoming obstacles he couldn’t foresee a decade ago.
That old swagger emerges in bits and pieces, and his friends and family have noticed.
“It’s great to see him feel better,” said longtime Southwind neighbor Susan Cayce, who followed Wittenberg during his pro-am round Monday.
“I’m not playing good enough physically today to probably win here … but I have won,” Wittenberg added. “The moment doesn’t scare me. It’s just being able to perform well enough physically to be able to put yourself in that moment. I would like to have an outside opportunity. That would be a dream come true for me. Just a chance.”
With that, Wittenberg slung his golf bag over his shoulder and began walking along the edge of TPC Southwind’s driving range. He knew the way home from here.