Mike WeirDARRYL DYCK
Mike Weir had surgery Thursday in Pensacola, Fla. to repair the damaged extensor tendon of his right elbow. James Andrews performed the surgery at the Andrews Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine. Andrews has performed surgery on golfers Jack Nicklaus, Jerry Pate and Mark McCumber, as well as many other athletes, including basketball players Scottie Pippen (elbow) and Allan Iverson (knee).
"I've always liked fixing people," Andrews told the magazine Fast Company in 2008. "I want to get these athletes back to doing what they did before."
Andrews is best known for what is called "Tommy John surgery." John was a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers who in 1974 required ulnar- collateral ligament reconstruction, which is elbow graft surgery. The surgery, in which the torn ligament is replaced with a tendon, saved his career.
Weir, 41, expects to be unable to compete from three to six months. He has suffered from elbow problems since the British Open in July of 2010, which he said could have resulted from his hitting many practice shots off the firm turf there. A magnetic resonance imaging test the following month after Weir missed the cut at the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C. showed that he had a partially torn ligament.
Weir did not play a PGA Tour event again until January of this year.
He entered 15 tournaments and made the cut in just two. Weir shot 74 in the opening round of the RBC Canadian Open in Vancouver last month, but withdrew during the second round after trying to extricate himself from deep rough on the sixth hole. He was hurting and did not want to do further damage.
Another MRI indicated a minor tear that would require rest and icing.
Weir thought he would resume playing perhaps as early as this week's Wyndham Championship, or at least during the PGA Tour's Fall Series that starts Sept. 29 in Las Vegas. Weir continued to seek opinions regarding his injury, and an MRI that Andrews conducted revealed a new injury that would require surgery.
"Apparently he has an MRI unit that picks up double the resolution, and they inject an ink dye to the area to further identify the issue with the imaging," Dave Haggith, Weir's manager at Toronto's International Management Group, wrote in an e-mail. "The previous injury [which was looked at with the original MRI]was to the ligament, which was in fact minor."
"My elbow has caused me problems over the past year and during the RBC Canadian Open it essentially became unplayable," Weir said in a release that IMG issued Friday morning. "Dr. Andrews is the best in the business, and it's my hope with patience, and diligent post- surgery rehab, I will be able to put my elbow problems behind me and look forward."
A number of pro golfers can identify with how challenging Weir's recovery will be.
"Something like that is so difficult to overcome," Englishman Paul Casey said last month when asked about Weir's injury troubles. "I tore the muscles in my ribs a couple years ago. It took a long time to get over, about six months, and then for about six months after that I played very tentatively. I just never let the club go.
"I kind of hung on to a lot of stuff, you're unsure if you're going to re-injure yourself and then you start to think: 'Am I going to get back to where I was?"'
The former Masters champion has fallen to 539th in the world rankings.
Weir wasn't the only one recovering from elbow surgery. Tim Clark underwent a procedure on Tuesday to repair a torn tendon in his right elbow.
The former Players champion told PGATour.com that he hopes to be hitting balls in about three months and he expects to be ready for the 2012 season.
"The main thing is getting the strength back," Clark said. "I could reinjure it if I tried to start playing too soon."
Clark has been struggling with the injury since the Sony Open event in January. Like Weir, the South African thought he could get by on rest and therapy. But an MRI six weeks ago revealed that the tear was worse than it had been. In all, Clark played in just four events this year.
Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report