McGirt looking back to form after setbacks
Former Memorial champ William McGirt checks out his tee shot on No. 10 during the third round of his eventual win in 2016. Photo by the honorable Dave Weismann/Columbus Wired.
Two hip surgeries, two entire missed years of playing golf and 39 cuts missed.
Suffice it to say, former Memorial Tournament champion William McGirt has been through a lot since notching his first PGA Tour win at Jack’s course in 2016.
However, the world’s current 1,249th-ranked golfer scrapped hard through the first round of the 47th annual Memorial on Thursday with a three-under par, 69, which has him tied him for 11th place.
"Every time I drive through the gate here, I just fall in love with this place. And I'm comfortable around here, I know I can play well here and (I) just relax. I enjoy being here," he said.
That's probably understandable considering this is the only place he's ever won.
McGirt said during the past six years, though, he felt like he’s been playing better than what his scores have represented and finally saw some results in today’s round.
“I’ve had a couple of good rounds here and there but haven’t been able to sustain it. So hopefully this week will change and we can keep it going.”
Nevertheless, the journey since his lone Tour victory to date has been a tough one.
“It’s been hard,” he said. “Fighting two hip surgeries, missing two years. It took me a while to get my feet back under me (and) get the competitive juices flowing again.”
After Thursday’s round, McGirt took to the podium and dished on the two surgeries, how much of a sham disability insurance is and how much of a golf freak his nine-year-old son has turned into. And he did it in only the way a charming southerner with a laid-back yet charismatic style could do.
“I’m two-and-a-half weeks away from 43 years old. I’ve got a nine- and six-year-old, and my nine-year-old is so in love with golf. If you guys need to know any stats about any player, ask him because he knows my stats inside and out.”
Between Thursday’s round and his final round of the 2016 Memorial, McGirt has played in 87 events and missed the cut 39 times, which is nearly half.
In the middle of that time span, he missed almost two entire years of playing from September 2018 through September 2020 because of the surgeries. Although, there was one lone appearance he made during that span: the 2020 Memorial Tournament. He made the cut but finished tied-for 68th.
From that point, he took another two-month break but began playing again with consistency starting with the Safeway Open in September of that year.
But it was a couple of years after that 2016 win that he noticed his hip just wasn’t working like it used to and he could feel the pain. At that point, he knew something was needed to be done or else his playing career would be.
“I couldn’t turn. Biggest thing (was) I couldn’t turn,” he said. “If I ever had a ball below my feet or downhill lie, I couldn’t rotate into my left side. I was basically reverse pivot and trying to create rotation because when I started my follow-through (and) started rotating into my left side, I had bone-on-bone.”
He said the worst part wasn’t necessarily the discomfort but getting a good night’s sleep.
“For about four months, I couldn’t sleep. Every time I would move at night, it would wake me up and that’s when I knew it’s time to do something.”
Femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) was the diagnosis, which is an extremely fancy way of saying the ball in his hip was pinching too much against the hip socket.
“Good luck spelling that,” McGirt said with a sarcastic chuckle.
He also had a torn labrum and needed the bones shaved down as well as a bone fragment the size of a jelly bean removed.
That’s when he decided to have surgery in September of 2018.
“Literally when they put me out to do the surgery, under anesthesia, they recheck all your range of motion and I had zero degrees of internal rotation.”
After almost a year after that initial surgery, he said he was feeling fine and ready to hit the links.
“I was gung-ho, ready to come back … and I hadn’t gone seven days in a row of practice yet,” he said. “So I went down to Congaree (Golf Club in South Carolina) and spent four days down there. The first two, I was fine. The third day I was pretty good. The fourth day I woke up and I could not move. It felt worse than it did before the first surgery. I threw my stuff in the car, drove back home and told my wife, ‘I’m going to Nashville.’”
McGirt said as soon as he walked into the hospital and they took one look at him, they asked in bewilderment what he had done.
“I walked in and it was so swollen that standing there in a pair of gym shorts, they looked at me and said, ‘What have you done?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’”
That’s when a second surgery was done in August of 2019 and they once again shaved down the bones but didn’t do anything to the labrum because that looked fine. However, this time around they removed a “bunch” of scar tissue as well as a peanut-sized M&M bone fragment that they had apparently missed the first time around.
That’s when a rift occurred between he and his insurance provider.
“The sham of (disability) insurance is they cut you off because all they’re (doing) is reading a manual saying, ‘this is the average time.’ And I argued with them, I said, ‘You do understand what the definition of average is, right?’ Needless to say, I didn’t win that argument.”
He said his hip still pops with certain motions but fortunately, it’s not painful.
“I think it’s something I’ll have to deal with the rest of my life. I told him (the doctor), ‘If I have another surgery, we’re not doing stitches again. I just want a full-length zipper. I’ve had the knee done twice, hip done twice, just make it easy on yourself next time,” he said with a laugh.
“Honestly, within the last probably six weeks, I finally feel like I have the strength and the stability in my hip to be able to do what I wanted to do. I finally feel like my body is healthy enough and strong enough to do this on a week-to-week basis.”
McGirt will tee of for his second round starting onthe 10tee at 12:36 p.m. alongside Matthew Wolff and CharlesHowell III.