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December 23, 2007

Knee surgery sidelines Brad Faxon

Brad Faxon went to Mass General Hospital Friday for what he was hoping would be relatively minor arthroscopic knee surgery.

It turned out to be much worse.

``When I woke up they told me they had to totally repair the ACL,’’ Faxon related this afternoon from his home in Barrington. ``They had to do two bone graphs, part of the tibia was exposed, cartilage was floating around.

``It was bad news, to say the least,’’ Faxon related.

It means that the 26-year PGA Tour veteran, who had planned to be in Hawaii to start the new season next month, will not be playing golf for several months.

``It’s probably four to five months unless I get lucky,’’ Faxon said.

The setback is the continuation of a difficult period for the 46-year-old Rhode Island Country Club product. An eight-time tour champion who has earned more than $17 million on tour, Faxon had his least successful season ever in 2007, in part because of health issues. He missed part of the season because of foot surgery.

He returned to competition for the first time two weeks ago when he competed in the Merrill Lynch Shootout in Florida, partnering with Justin Leonard in the team event. The good news was that his foot felt fine. The bad news was that he continued to have problems with his right knee.

That knee had been surgically repaired two years ago. Even before the foot surgery, he had begun feeling pain again in the knee.

``I had problems bending down reading putts,’’ he said. ``The pain was getting excruciating. I knew someone was wrong.’’

He consulted with doctors in both Providence and Boston. Thomas Gill, the noted orthopedic surgeon who had performed the surgery on his knee two years ago, told him that an MRI confirmed something was wrong.

``He told me he couldn’t make a call on exactly what it was until he got in there,’’ Faxon related. With the new golf season rapidly approaching, it was decided to go in for the scope surgery as soon as possible.

The knee now is encased in a CPM machine which moves the knee automatically. He will begin rehab as soon as he is given permission, but is not likely to even begin thinking about playing again until the tour heads back to the east coast in the spring.

Faxon finished 219th in earnings in 2007, with $84,645. Normally, only the top 125 players maintain full playing privileges. However, because he is 24th on the all-time earnings list with $17,656,554, Faxon is entitled to take a year’s exemption for full playing privileges. Actually, there are two such exemption, one for those in the top 25, another for the top 50, meaning Faxon still would have two full seasons without worrying about his position on the money list.
He took one of those exemptions and was planning to play 22 to 24 events in 2008.

Obviously, that is now out of the question. His plan is to simply return when he is healthy again and proceed from there.

Posted by Paul Kenyon  at 3:23 PM to Paul Kenyon on Golf | Permalink

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