Golf’s ultimate survivor keeps fighting – no matter what Former RBC Canadian Open winner Ken Green was an ultra-aggressive golfer. The 60-year-old pro, who has battled depression over the years, is also a survivor – losing his son, brother, girlfriend and much of his right leg – enduring tragedy after tragedy, Bob Weeks writes.

Bob Weeks TSN Senior Reporter Follow|Archive

On the long list of RBC Canadian Open champions, there are names the jump out: Tommy Armour, Walter Hagen, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Greg Norman, Nick Price and Tiger Woods. The names on the trophy are engraved like a timeline of golf’s greats.

However, not every winner is as memorable as those legends. Not many scanning the collection of champions would single out Ken Green, a bespectacled professional from Danbury, Conn., with a penchant for colourful shoes and a green golf glove. He arrived at Glen Abbey 30 years ago with two victories on his resume and a reputation for being one of the most outspoken, outrageous and talented professionals of his day.

During his tenure on tour, Green became known for not only speaking his mind and racking up fines but also playing some exceptional golf.

He was an ultra-aggressive golfer who once hit a driver for his second shot into the 18th green at Glen Abbey. The fact that his ball was in a bunker at the time and he had to play over the water never fazed him. He held the green and made a birdie. By the time his career ended, he’d played 508 tournaments, had 44 top-10 finishes and collected $3.7 million in earnings.

But Green was also aggressive in other ways. He was fined by the PGA Tour more than 25 times for offences ranging from swearing to criticizing officials. He once drank a beer during a round at the Masters and on another occasion accused a fellow professional of cheating.

But what may be even more stunning is that his life off the course has been even crazier, a wild ride of tragedies piled on top of disasters that would suffocate most mortals. To be sure, Green is a survivor who has led a life that's had many more downs than ups that it's almost too hard to believe.

Ken Green arrived at Glen Abbey in September 1988 and was having a solid if not spectacular season. He’d played 22 tournaments and posted four top-10 finishes. He’d missed the cut two starts earlier at the PGA Championship and logged a ho-hum tie for 45th at the International after that. Despite the mediocre finishes, he knew his game was close to being very good. And when he got north of the border, it clicked.

He opened the Canadian stop with rounds of 70 and 65 to share the 36-hole lead with Jeff Sluman. A third-round 68 gave him a three-shot lead heading into Sunday. The final day began in hot, humid conditions with threatening skies building to the west of the Oakville, Ont., course. On the course, Green was rolling, extending his lead and looking unstoppable.

“The thing I remember the most, I was just playing so well and was opening up a big lead,” Green, now 60, recalled. “It was basically going to be a cakewalk and then, boom, this storm comes in out of nowhere.”

Play was first suspended and then cancelled with a Monday finish necessitated. Canada’s Dave Barr had the clubhouse lead at 11 under, but never really thought he’d have a chance to win. Green was at 10 under and he still had seven holes to play and a collection of other golfers, including Bill Glasson and Scott Verplank, were hot on his heels.

But the next morning, Barr’s chances suddenly didn’t look all that bad. The weather had taken a sudden turn, with temperatures going from the high 20s into the low teens and winds gusting to more than 30 km/h.

“The next day we’re down there on the [Valley] and it was freezing cold and the wind was howling and those holes became so hard,” Green recalled.

“It was just downright brutal. There’s nothing worse than a howling wind with cold. It’s hard enough to control the ball anyway, and when you’re as cold as it was, it makes it that much harder to make good golf swings.”

Green maintained his lead as the final groups climbed out of the Valley. Standing on the 18th tee, he was at 13 under and one up. When Verplank, playing ahead of him, failed to make birdie on the par-5 18th, Green layed up and lofted a sand wedge onto the green for an easy par and his third win.

While the finishing day’s weather and the tremendous play were all notable, what the new champion said in his victory speech may well be the most memorable part of the final day.

Cigarette company du Maurier was the sponsor of the tournament and had been a stalwart backer of golf in Canada. But in all the excitement of his win, Green had never asked anyone the proper pronunciation of du Maurier. His well-intentioned thank you came out all wrong.

“I’d like to thank Do-Me-Eh or however the heck you say it,” he stated.

Jaws dropped, golf officials cringed but for Green it was sheer honesty.

“When I said that,” he admitted, “it wasn’t a lack of respect, I honestly didn’t know how to pronounce it.”

It wasn’t the first time Green’s blunt truthfulness would rankle others, nor would it be the last. But there was no animosity in his words this time or any other. He was just being direct because that’s what he knew.

“The amazing thing about this is I actually tell people I was holding back,” Green recalled, “that I didn’t say everything I wanted to. And yet evidently me holding back was more than anybody else. I never could understand that. All I was ever doing was answering questions honestly. If someone asked me a question, I gave them an answer.

“It baffled me that the PGA Tour and golfing world couldn’t seem to handle that. It’s still a mystery to me because anyone who’s that age or from that era always remembers me as being this bad boy. I thought I was being diplomatic.”

Perhaps he was, but he seemed to have an aversion to authority or, at least, to staying within the rules.

In 1997 Green played the Masters and the night before the first round, while playing basketball with some friends in front of the house he’d rented, he broke his thumb. He struggled to an 87 and was going to withdraw but learned he’d be paired the next day with Arnold Palmer.

“It was an absolute phenomenal day,” he said of the second round. “We talked about all sorts of things. He told me all sorts of stories and it was just a fun day. On the 15th hole I had a friend bring me a beer because I said I’ve got to have a beer with Arnold Palmer. I’m never going to get this chance again. I went up to him with the beer and I said, ‘Arnold, I just wanted you to know, this has been a blast. I know we’re probably never going to have a chance to have a cocktail together, so I just want you to know I’m going to enjoy this beer with you.’ ”

Green got a letter from Hord Hardin, then the Masters chairman, for that incident. It wasn’t the last one.

Once, while playing a practice round with good pal Mark Calcavecchia, the two dropped balls in front of the pond on the 16th hole and skipped them over the water and safely on to land, much to the delight of the patrons.

That move resulted in another letter from Hardin, even though it has now become a regular practice.

“Today, they boo you if you don’t skip one,” Green remarked.

Another time, he brought his kids out to carry his clubs while he played the Par 3 contest, which no one had dared to do prior to this.

Green was fined by the PGA Tour more than 25 times for offences ranging from swearing to criticizing officials. He once drank a beer during a round at the Masters and on another occasion accused a fellow professional of cheating.

Another letter. And now also another standard practice.

“No one gives me credit because no one wants to give Ken Green credit,” he lamented of his Masters creations. “People talk about Seve [Ballesteros] did this and this guy did this and no one gives me credit.”

In the mid-1990s, Green’s play began to slide. By 1998 he was in freefall, he played 18 tournaments and made the cut in only three. That was the same number a year later when he entered just 11 events.

The reason wasn’t his play on the course but his life off it.

“My wife and I went through a divorce and she turned it into a seven-year court battle, turned the kids on me and I basically just lost my marbles,” said Green, being as honest and forthright as always. “There’s no other way around it. If you look at my career, you can see the slow collapse, the slow fall. Basically it just took a while before I became absolutely useless.”

Although he didn’t know it by name at the time, Green suffered from depression, an affliction so deep that his life became like a bottomless pit. Deeper and deeper he fell.

One night in 1999 he decided it was enough, took a handful of pills and lay down on the bed. He just wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep. Forever.

But Green, a devout animal lover, was saved by his dog, who he believes sensed what was happening. The dog pulled Green’s girlfriend off the couch and into the bedroom where Green was slipping away.

“If the dog doesn’t do that, I never wake up,” he said. “I actually didn’t wake up until two days later. When you get that opportunity to realize that there is a thing called depression and it really does change your mental outlook on life, it’s a wake-up call.”

With his depression being managed, a restart on life and golf came in 2008 when he turned 50 and joined the Champions Tour. While he was far from a world-beater, playing again was a perfect distraction from the depression and gave him focus.

But in 2009 his world turned upside down again. While driving his RV on Interstate 20 near Meridian, Miss., a tire blew and the vehicle careened down a steep embankment and hit a tree. His brother and caddie, William Green, and his girlfriend, Jeannie Hodgin, were both killed along with his beloved dog Nip.

He survived but his lower right leg was amputated.

“I remember when I woke up in the hospital but I didn’t remember the accident,” Green said. “All I could remember was hearing the tire explode. I told myself that after the first attempt at suicide that I would never let life beat me again. And I would continue fighting no matter what. So my brother and Jeannie were gone and my leg was gone. But I still thought I would fight through life.”

But there was still more to come. Seven months after the accident, Green’s son, Hunter, died of a drug overdose. It was an extreme case of bad luck piling on. How much could one man endure, his friends asked?

Apparently, even more. After the amputation, what was left of his leg became increasingly painful with shooting pains ripping up through his body, at times dropping him to the floor. He described the pain as similar to sticking a finger in a light socket.

To deal with the pain, he takes the opioid pain medications fentanyl and oxycodone, without which, he said, he’d never leave the house. He’s had 23 surgeries on his leg since the accident, the most recent one to remove even more of his leg to alleviate the nerve pain.

After all these haymakers to the soul and kicks to the gut, it would have been easy to cave in, to collapse. But he chose to fight and to battle on.

“Obviously, you don’t want to lose your life, lose your son, lose your leg or [attempt to] commit suicide or all the other stuff that’s happened,” he admitted. “But I wouldn’t be the person I am and things happen in life. As weird as this might sound, I feel like I’m almost lucky that I was given the opportunity to learn from all the misfortune that’s come my way.

“I’d rather have it happen to me than to other people who couldn’t handle it.”

“What he’s been through, after the accident, his leg and stuff,” said his longtime friend and fellow Canadian Open winner Calcavecchia. “He’s been in a lot of pain and he’s probably one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met.”

He also said Green has been misunderstood by too many, who never take the time to get to know him. They seem to read the headlines but never get to know this supposed bad boy.

Green had 23 surgeries on his leg since the accident, the most recent being one to remove even more of his leg to alleviate the nerve pain.

“If you know him the way I know him, you wouldn’t really say that,” stated Calcavecchia, who plays golf regularly with Green. “He’s the biggest animal lover that I’ve ever met. He’s done so many things for dogs, for kids, his foundation gives kids scholarships, and he’s raised a lot of money for that.”

These days, Green splits his time between Florida and Connecticut, still playing golf as often as he can. He tried to make a comeback on the Champions Tour, but with his prosthesis walking any type of hilly course is next to impossible. He’s also found the door pretty much closed on sponsor exemptions.

He also reflects on his reputation, one that still puzzles him.

“I’m not bitter but I sit there and shake my head,” he lamented. “And the thing I wonder the most about is I swear to you I thought I was being polite and respectful. I didn’t see [myself] as this bad boy so that’s why I couldn’t understand. That’s what was frustrating to me – I just didn’t see it.

“All I did was tell the truth.”

And, really, what’s wrong with that?