No pressure for May this week -- after all, he's in the game

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Bob May says he's ready for the ringer of the final stage of q-school.

Unless you're Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson, there's an added pressure of a so-called journeyman having to contend against one of those superstars in a major championship: The possibility you could be one and done.

Woods and Mickelson know they're going to have a chance to win a major at least once a season. For some pros, they get one shot in their lifetimes, so they better make the most of it.

Just ask Bob May.

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Eight years ago, May pushed Woods to the limit in the 2000 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky. May forced Woods to make an 8-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole just to advance to a playoff, where Woods relied on a run-after-the-ball, finger-pointing birdie on the first hole of a three-hole aggregate playoff to earn his fifth career major championship.

May's runner-up finish earned him a career-best $540,000 payday -- and a share of the all-time PGA scoring record with Woods at 18-under 270. But that proved to be one of the last highlights for May, who at 40 finds himself once again fighting for his career in this week's final stage of the PGA TOUR National Qualifying Tournament at PGA West in La Quinta, Calif.

May's game didn't disappear after he lost to Woods by a scant shot at Valhalla. Fact is, he came within a shot of winning the week after the PGA, missing a playoff at Reno by a shot. But even worse, May's health disappeared.

"I didn't touch a club for 2½ years," May said. "I went almost three years without playing competitive golf."

To paraphrase Lee Trevino's old line, the only thing worse than a pro putting for pars is to spend too much time looking at X-rays and MRIs of a bad back.

May had been battling lower-back pain for years, but it finally went out on him on the final hole of the 2003 EDS Byron Nelson Championship. He didn't tee it up again until the end of 2005, at q-school.

"I had to have spinal stenosis," May said. "They had to go in and widen my spinal nerve canal out."

The surgery was as bad as it sounds.

"There was a 10 percent chance of being paralyzed in a surgery like that," May said. "I had no feeling in my feet by the end of the day. Left foot, I could hardly move my toes. Lost function in my toes, was on bed rest for 10 weeks, so it was pretty bad."

May returned to the PGA TOUR in 2006 and had a runner-up finish at the B.C. Open, which was played opposite the British Open. But his season earnings of $548,712 -- barely matching what he made at Valhalla that magical week -- left him outside the top 125 in 2006.

He slid to 189th in earnings in 2007, forcing him to return to the Nationwide Tour this year. He was in position to finish in the top 25 and return to the PGA TOUR when he posted a runner-up finish at the Bank of America. But by the season's end, he was 39th in money, so he's back at q-school.

It's been a tough battle for a player who was a junior phenom since he first started taking golf lessons from legendary golf pro Eddie Merrins at Bel Air Country Club in Los Angeles. Woods remembers hearing some of May's success stories when he was growing up.

"He was a legend in Southern California junior golf," Woods said.

Woods referred to the final round of the 2000 PGA as one of the toughest battles he's faced. "We never backed off from one another," Woods said. "Birdie for birdie, shot for shot, we were going right at each other. That's as good as it gets."

But that's not what May wants to hear anymore. Needless to say, May's struggles the last five years have changed his outlook on the game.

"When you start making a decent amount of money, and you get caught up in that, you really lose why we play golf," May said. "And I realize when I got injured, golf was taken from me. I realized that I played the game because I loved the game. When I took it up as a kid, you can make a decent living, but you weren't going to get rich and wealthy unless you were a superstar.

"Now, the game has gotten big, and you can make a nice living. But I think that a lot of players have kind of forgotten why they play golf. I learned that I play golf because I love golf. If I wasn't playing golf professionally, I would be involved in it in some way."

May switched to a belly putter last year and has gained more confidence on the greens. But he knows the game can be taken away from him again in a second.

"All it takes then is me bending over and picking up something wrong and that fatigue turns into a spasm or something," May said. "That's where I really have got to be careful."

It's not easy for a golfer to draw on a moment that took place more than eight years ago, but May will try to draw on those memories when he begins the six-day ordeal at PGA West on Wednesday.

"It's nice to know that when you get in a pressure situation, you can rely on everything that you've practiced," he said. "I've done it before and in a situation that was more pressure on me. And so, hopefully, I can do it again."

Craig Dolch is a freelance columnist for PGATOUR.COM. His opinion does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the PGA TOUR.