“Snake-bit” seems an altogether appropriate description for what Shane Bertsch has gone through with his golf career in recent years. The only hesitancy in using the term is the sense that, given his misfortune, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he might actually be bitten by a snake.
Bertsch, the Parker resident who already has had his PGA Tour career interrupted in the last few years by a case of vertigo and a broken foot, confirmed Wednesday that he recently suffered a broken right hand that will sideline him for a few months at least.
A winner of nearly $1.8 million in his Tour career, Bertsch said he sustained the injury in Monterey, Calif., on Feb. 7, when heavy bags fell on his hand while he was moving some things around underneath his recreational vehicle.
“It was an unfortunate, freak accident,” Bertsch said Wednesday from Parker. “I shouldn’t have been doing it in the dark. “¦ When it happened, I was just in shock.”
The Denver native, who will turn 40 on March 30, hasn’t played on Tour since January, and he said the best-case scenario is that he would return to action in late April or early May.
“But I’ve learned it’s impossible to tell for sure,” said Bertsch, who hopes to have the pins removed from his hand in a couple of weeks.
If there’s one thing Bertsch knows about after the last 3½ years, it’s adversity.
Late in 2006 and early in 2007, he experienced dizziness while playing on Tour. He was later diagnosed with vertigo, which limited him to one Tour event in 2007 after January.
Bertsch was granted a medical exemption for 2008, and with his performance by early October of that year he mistakenly thought he had guaranteed himself a Tour card for 2009. Bertsch had misunderstood the medical exemption, and he ended up losing his fully-exempt status when he skipped the next-to-last tournament of the 2008 season and missed the cut in the Tour finale. Still, his partial exemption likely would have gotten him spots in about 20 tournaments last year.
“Would have” is the operative term because more bad luck was about to befall Bertsch. As he was going downs stairs in his house late in 2008, he slipped and broke his right foot. With a couple of extra surgeries on the foot proving necessary, he didn’t compete again on the PGA or Nationwide Tour until September. He played two Tour events in 2009, missing the cut in both cases.
But things took a turn for the better in December. That’s when the former Colorado Open champion shot a 65 in the sixth and final round of PGA Tour qualifying to finish 15th, assuring himself of a Tour card for 2010.
And Bertsch started out on the right foot this year, making three cuts in as many events in January, including finishing 25th at the Sony Open.
But after Bertsch had taken his R.V. to Pebble Beach in preparation for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, things went south in a hurry when he broke his hand on Super Bowl Sunday. After pins were inserted in the hand, it was placed in a splint.
“I had a decent start (to the season) and was starting to show some good signs,” he said. “My foot wasn’t 100 percent but it was becoming more of a non-issue. But now everything is put on hold and I have a whole new thing to deal with. But there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Bertsch, whose best tournament finish on the PGA Tour is a fifth-place showing in 1996, takes some solace that the injury was to his right hand rather than his left, which feels more pressure in a golf grip for a right-handed player.
Bertsch said he’s been in contact with PGA Tour officials, and he’s been told that if he fails to make enough money by the end of the season to keep his card, the Tour will determine how much time he missed because of the injury and he’ll be given a set number of events in 2011 to make a certain amount of money in order to remain exempt.
“I’m starting to learn (medical-exempt status) better,” Bertsch said. “The only good thing is that it’s there for us. I’m testing it to its full extent.”
