After a welcome return to form at the 3M Open, Brandt Snedeker detailed the gruesome sounding surgery he had to undergo after trying everything else to try and find a cure to save his career.
An opening round of 64 at TPC Twin Cities was his best since he returned to the PGA Tour at the Memorial in June - after being out since September following his surgery.
The nine-time PGA Tour winner says the sternum injury he's been dealing with since 2016 got to a point where it could have forced him to hang up his clubs, had he not had a rare operation as a last resort.
Officially diagnosed as an 'unstable manubrium joint', Snedeker said there was only "12 cases in the world in the last 15 years" of his condition.
”Mine was the only one that was on record of non-trauma related,” he added. “I assumed it to be repeated trauma of hitting a golf ball.”
The 42-year-old used all manner of drugs and painkillers to try and live with the injury, even going to South America for stem cell treatment, but in the end a rare and quite invasive operation was needed.
"I had a sternum injury I've had since 2016, so I've been dealing with it for a long time. Kind of doing some stopgaps to kind of let me be able to play," said Snedeker.
"Got to the point where my quality of life and my career was not going to mesh.
"So made a decision to have surgery on my sternum. Went around and saw a bunch of specialists and found a guy in Nashville who'd done one of these before on a guy, Steve McNair, old quarterback for the Titans. Felt comfortable with him doing it.
"So they take a bone out of your hip and kind of cut your sternum straight across wide open, put half the bone in the lower half, half the bone in the upper half and kind of pop it back into place. Kind of like a Lego snapping back into place.
Fast start for @BrandtSnedeker 💪He co-leads in the clubhouse at 7-under @3MOpen. pic.twitter.com/CujnH9uTs9July 27, 2023
"So they snapped it back into place and kind of fingers crossed it worked when they did it.
"And luckily so far I haven't had any pain. I felt really good, haven't really lost any mobility or anything. So now it's about me kind of putting the time in. So it's been great and I'm excited to be back out here doing what I love to do."
And Snedeker admitted that he even went for some unorthodox treatment in South America in his desperation to find a cure.
"Yeah, I went to South America for stem cell injections," he added. "Tried everything at one point or another that was legal under the sun.
"Kind of my last ditch effort was the surgery. Whether it worked or not was up to the doctors, but it was either that or no more golf, so decided to give it a go."
As for his return to form in Minnesota, Snedeker insisted: "It's been coming. I've been playing good at home and been making some dumb mistakes the first couple rounds.
"Just kind of rust. Hadn't played competitively for like nine months I had off. I knew it was going to be a little learning curve coming back, and took a little longer than I wanted to, but finally able to put a round together.
"It was coming and it was nice to see some putts go in and kind of have an easy stress-free round where I hit the ball really well, didn't do anything poorly all day, so it was nice to have one of those rounds."
