Arnold Prank Calls

Ken Green Is Enduring Unimaginable Pain To Write Golf's Great Comeback Story

Fifteen minutes. Ken Green's fifteen minutes came in 1997, at the Masters, when he arranged a little prank that made him famous. He was a decent pro golfer who won two Ryder Cup matches in 1989, and he wanted to have a beer with Arnold Palmer. So when he found himself paired with the King at Augusta, Green asked a buddy to slip him a beer on the 15th Hole. The crowd loved it. The media loved it. Ken loved it. Golf needed a guy like that – a regular guy with a little bit of attitude. Golf still needs a guy like that. But Ken probably can't be that guy -- not anymore.

Fifteen minutes. Everything changed for Green in fifteen minutes. On a Monday after a Champions Tour final round in Texas, almost two years ago exactly, Green's RV headed north for a tournament in upstate New York. As it coasted through Mississippi, the RV careened off the road, down an embankment, and straight into a tree. No one inside was wearing a seat belt. Ambulances arrived at the scene – a mess of wood, brush and shrapnel. Green had hurt his right leg so badly that he would need it amputated. His brother, Billy, was dead. Green's girlfriend, Jeanne Hodgin, was also killed. So was Ken's dog, Nip.

Those fifteen minutes have been chasing Ken Green ever since.

Fifteen minutes. That's what Ken Green talks about now. He imagines fifteen minutes free of pain. Not the emotional kind, though there’s that too. Green wonders what it would be like to have fifteen minutes of his life when he’s not in writhing, paralyzing, physical pain. He'd use those fifteen minutes to sleep, or to play with his dogs, or maybe even have a beer. He's got a few in the fridge, but he can’t drink even one, because he says they make the pain worse.

"I can't tell you how many times," he says, sitting at his cluttered dining room table, "if there was a pistol in my bedroom, I would have used it."

Ken Green could get a reprieve from some of this anguish. His plight is not totally out of his hands. But he wants something more than fifteen minutes without pain. He wants fifteen more minutes of tournament golf.

***

He lives in a world of gates and mansions. West Palm Beach. The Gold Coast. But Ken Green has a modest, low-slung house on a quiet side street. The only gate out front is a fence keeping his three dogs from roaming too far. It's Saturday night, but Green has no plans. He's got four red velvet cupcakes on the counter, but he has no appetite. He says he hardly eats anything these days.

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