PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Look who’s lurking near the top of the PGA Championship leaderboard at Oak Hill after one round.
Paul Casey. Remember him? Don’t fret if you don’t. His career has been in an abyss for three years.
Casey, thanks to some serious support from his coach, CBS golf commentator Peter Kostis, and due to his own perseverance, is in contention after shooting a 3-under-par 67 yesterday to stand just two shots out of the lead.
In a metaphoric way, Kostis could have looked at his own recent health battle with colon cancer in the same way he looked at the on-and-off-course struggles of Casey: Life was going to go one of two ways.
In the case of Kostis, when he was diagnosed earlier this summer, he attacked it first with surgery, which eradicated the cancer, and currently with a precautionary regimen of chemotherapy. The fate of his life, following the scare, has taken the proper path.
So, too, has the life of Casey whose game bottomed out after a litany of injuries and a divorce that took him from No. 3 in the world rankings in 2009 to 169th in June.
If Casey, who won the Irish Open in late June, continues on the path he’s on, he’ll be everyone’s comeback player of the year in a landslide.
Since he played in the final pairing of the 2010 British Open at St. Andrews, Casey has suffered from turf toe, for which he must take cortisone shots once a year for the rest of his career, tore an intercostal muscle in his rib cage, injured his wrist and thumb snowboarding, dislocated his right shoulder while snowboarding and gotten divorced.
Casey yesterday called his last few years “a classic tale of you don’t realize how much you miss something until it’s gone.’’
Kostis, speaking to The Post by phone yesterday from his vacation home in Maine where he is recovering from chemotherapy treatments, called Casey’s last few years “a series of one-thing-after-another.’’
“You never know how to measure a man or an athlete until he hits a tough patch,’’ Kostis said. “It’s easy if you’re going 3-for-4 every night to be a good hitter. Go 0-for-52 and then come back and show me you’re a good hitter.
“Paul could have gone one of two ways from all of this. He was part of that group of British players [Justin Rose, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter] who had so much promise and he could have been bitter seeing Justin Rose win a major before he did, which would be an understandable reaction. But it motivated him. He was proud of Justin for winning the U.S. Open and he said, ‘You know what? I can do that, too.’
“He’s used all the adversity as motivation to work his way back.’’
Casey, of course, is not all the way back. There is still work to do — the rest of this week at Oak Hill and beyond. But, Kostis, insisted: “He’s back on form physically. Now he’s got to get his confidence level to match the level of his execution.’’
“It’s been a long road,’’ Kostis said. “I’m extremely proud of him. If he won this week I wouldn’t be surprised on one hand, but on other hand I would be pleasantly surprised because it would be an acceleration of his recovery.’’
Casey began his round on the back nine yesterday and played it in 1-over par. On the front, which was his back, he carded five birdies and shot 31.
He spoke afterward about “being appreciative being back on the big stage,’’ adding, “It’s been awhile since my name’s been up there [on the leaderboard in a major], and it feels very good.’’
Nothing, of course, would feel better than putting four of yesterday’s rounds together and winning this week, matching Rose’s accomplishment at Merion, and rebooting his career track.
“This has been building up for quite a while, and [yesterday] I just stepped it up a notch,’’ Casey said. “You don’t know how you are going to go until you put yourself in that situation.”
He was going to go one of two ways. Now we get to see how the rest of the week goes.
“I said when I first started working with him that if he’s not a multiple major championship winner when his career is over, I’d be disappointed, because he has that kind of potential,’’ Kostis said. “I still feel that way.’’