THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Bayley's painful, rewarding road back

Before last weekend, Derek Bayley hadn’t won a golf tournament in nearly two years.

Heck, he hadn’t even played much golf in the last year and a half, after having surgery in May 2022 to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder.

As it turned out, the surgery failed — the labrum was re-torn.

That he can live with.

But the problem is, it’s easy for his shoulder to pop out because of the torn labrum. Even off the golf course.

That is a pain the Rathdrum native, who starred at Lakeland High and Washington State before turning pro in 2019, would rather not live with.

“Ten out of 10,” Bayley said of the pain of a dislocated shoulder. “I would describe it as excruciating. It’s happened so many times over the last three years, it still really really hurts. I just have to move my arm to get it back into place. I don’t have a certain technique; I just basically scream and moan until I get it back in.”

So there he was last Friday, laying on the ground in said excruciating pain on the sixth fairway at Quail Hollow Golf Course in Boise, in the first round of the PGA Rocky Mountain Section’s Idaho Open.

“Shoulder went out of place — dislocated on the sixth hole — when I waved to a friend of mine,” said Bayley, 27. “That tells you how easy it is for it to dislocate; it was one wrong move.”

A friend from Boise who was playing in the tourney was walking up an adjacent fairway. Subconsciously, Bayley reached out with his left hand to wave, and his shoulder popped out.

“I was sitting in my cart, and I kind of fell to the ground, in that 10-out-of-10 pain, and it took me probably 30 seconds to get it back into place,” Bayley said of his shoulder.

HIS DAD, Mike, was standing up by the sixth green — Bayley had just hit his approach shot. Derek waved his dad back to him in the fairway.

“I didn’t really know what to do,” Derek said, “because that is the first time it had ever happened on the golf course, much less in a tournament.”

He headed up to the green, where he had an 8-footer for birdie, and figured he could at least putt that. He missed and tapped in for par

He chatted some more with his dad, then went to the next tee, took a few practice swings and settled on an abbreviated swing with a short follow through — a normal high-finish follow through would have put him at risk of his shoulder popping out again.

“I ended up hitting it probably 60 percent, 70 percent,” Bayley said. “And I kept my left arm at my side at all times, even on the follow-through. I didn’t really know what to do; I was kind of in a state of shock. I said (to my dad), I’m just going to try to get through nine holes, and then I’m going to call it quits.”

Then of course, golf happened.

Derek reached the par-5 seventh hole in two, and birdied. Then he birdied 8 and 9.

“And I’m like, ‘Well, how do I quit now?’” Bayley said.

He ended up shooting a 4-under 66 in the first round.

He came back and shot 67 in the second round Saturday, which put him in the final group for Sunday’s final round.

“And then the last part of the unbelievable story … “ Bayley said.

HIS SHOULDER had popped out in his sleep twice before he had the surgery in May 2022.

“The first time it came out in my sleep after the surgery was (Saturday) night,” Bayley said. “4:30 in the morning, I wake up, obviously had slept on it wrong, got into the position I can’t be in, and wake up screaming and moaning, wake up my dad. Shoulder was probably out of place for 10-15 seconds before I got it back in. About the scariest thing I’ve ever been a part of.”

He went back to sleep, got a couple more hours’ of rest, then went to the gym to get ready for the final round.

“And you know the rest,” Bayley said.

Bayley shot 2-under 68 in the final round, finished in a two-way tie for first at 9-under 201, then won on the first hole of a playoff.

“Luckily I was playing a course that was pretty short (6,176 from the tips),” he said. “And I hit a lot of drivers and 3-woods off the tee, even some irons off the tee, and a lot of wedges into the green, which was nice from a shoulder standpoint, where I didn’t have to make a lot of super-aggressive swings.”

He said the shoulder injury made him concentrate more on the mechanics of his swing, and less on the big picture of trying to win a tournament again.

“Not that my shoulder dislocating twice in the last three days is a good thing … ” Bayley said.

REWIND A few years.

Bayley first had labrum surgery when he was in high school, where he won a pair of state titles. He went through four years at WSU without any issues.

He won the Rosauers Open and Indian Canyon in Spokane in 2016 and 2018, shooting a 59 in the second round in ’16.

He played briefly on PGA Tour Latinoamerica and on the PGA Tour Canada, trying to use those avenues to qualify for the PGA Tour.

In 2020 he won the Reno Open, and with it a spot in the PGA Tour’s Barracuda Championship in Truckee, Calif. — his first and only PGA Tour event.

However …

“The last two or three years it (the left shoulder) really started bugging me,” Bayley said. “Couple things happened off the golf course that started affecting me (and the shoulder), the way I prepared and practiced.”

His last tournament before surgery was a U.S. Open local qualifier in May 2022.

Following the surgery, he did not play tournament golf again until this June, at PGA Tour Canada Q-school, where he had to withdraw after two rounds.

“The second surgery more or less failed,” Bayley said. “So I have a torn labrum that I’m trying to play through. That’s why it’s taken so long to get back on the golf course, and why it keeps giving me trouble, even now.

“Easy to say, it’s not giving me much trouble when I win,” he added.

He said a third surgery is “always on the table.

“Since it’s already re-torn, I’m not going to make it any worse,” he said.

Other than when the shoulder pops out — which has happened a few times, following what Bayley dubbed incidents/accidents that have nothing to do with golf.

“Couple times it’s happened just raising my arms up, rooting on Gonzaga, sitting on the couch,” Bayley said.

DID BAYLEY ever think about calling it quits as a professional golfer?

“There’s definitely been thoughts, especially when the stuff off the golf course happens, and the surgery fails,” he said. “There’s deeper conversations that I’ve had with people, discussing that … but, right now, I’m full steam ahead. I’ve had those conversations, and they’re over and done with. Whether I revisit those, we’ll see.”

How close did he come to calling it quits?

“Very close,” he said. “Not just because of the shoulder. It gave me issues off the golf course, it gave me issues on the golf course, before and after the surgery.

“Yeah, I was close … I’ll just leave it at that.”

He decided to keep trying.

“I’m too good to waste the talent,” Bayley said. “I’m too good to not give it a real shot. The shoulder’s kind of gotten in the way of everything the last couple of years.

“I felt I was on a good path (prior to the surgery), and when things go downhill, you start to wonder … but when I really sat down and had conversations with people, and did some self-reflecting on my own …

“It was more of, I am good enough; I just need to get healthy, get my shoulder right, get my mind right, and if I give myself a real shot, I’m going to do some good things, which I’ve shown in the past, that I can do it.’”

NEXT UP for Bayley is talking to some medical professionals in North Idaho about his shoulder, to determine what’s next — treatment, and/or possibly wearing a sleeve or a brace when he plays.

He’s preparing for the first stage of the Korn Ferry Tour Q-school in Oklahoma in October, trying to eventually qualify for the PGA Tour.

And coming off an unlikely victory at the Idaho Open last weekend in Boise … well, anything is possible for the talented Bayley.

“I can definitely say I did not expect to go down there and win this week, much less with everything happening the last couple of days,” he said Sunday night, hours after posing for photos with the $5,000 winners check. “But I guess that’s the beauty of going into a tournament without any expectations — you sometimes do stuff that surprises yourself.

“I need to try that more often.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.