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By Dave Lagarde
PGATOUR.com Correspondent

As it often happens, the game of golf had Ron Whittaker tied in taut knots by the end of June.

Ron Whittaker has cashed over $120,000 in his last two starts. (WireImage)

Down on his luck and down on his swing that lost too many balls way right whenever pressure nibbled at his psyche, Whittaker was, well, at Whitt's end. He knew in the deep recesses of his mind he needed to do something, but admitted his ego left him in a state of denial about exactly how to approach the fix.

"I wasn't very happy with the way things were going,'' Whittaker admitted Sunday after completing a meteoric rise into the Nationwide Tour's "THE 25'' with a one-shot victory over David MacKenzie in the Chattanooga Classic at Black Creek. "I was frustrated, had zero expectations. I was putting poorly and wasn't striking the ball well.''

Ouch!

Whittaker sighed at the recollection. "I needed an overhaul,'' he said.

Yet Whittaker, 36, a pro since 1995, said he might have been a little too stubborn to admit it. It took a heart-to-heart with his wife Gerritt to shake, rattle and roll him out of his malaise. Gerritt did it by telling him something that isn't always the easiest thing to say. She told her husband the truth as she saw it.

"I have a wonderful wife,'' he said. "She said what she felt.''

Apparently Gerritt had said it before, perhaps in a different way.

"I guess I didn't listen because she's my wife,'' Whittaker said, laughing.

This time Gerritt was direct and to the point.

Bingo!

"Basically she helped me realize something had to be done,'' he said. "She saw me spiraling and spoke up.''

So Whittaker got in gear. He sent video of his swing to his instructor, Chris Walker, who is based in Palm Springs, Calif. Together, they made a tweak here and a tweak there. Nothing major. They were designed to quiet Whittaker's leg action on his downswing, movement that normally produced two results, neither of them beneficial to making birdies.

"The club was getting stuck behind my body, which made me hit it right,'' he said. "Or I'd realize the club was stuck and flip at it, sending it left.''

The new and improved Whittaker is more centered during his swing, putting the club in a better position throughout his move. And now he's on the move.

The changes were made just before the Cox Classic presented by Chevrolet in Omaha. The impact was immediate. Whittaker tied for fourth.

"This is a game of confidence,'' he said. "Getting positive feedback on the changes was huge for me.

Whittaker has missed only one cut in the 10 events since the changes. He was produced six top 25s and four top 10s that included a playoff loss the week before his victory. That's the kind of consistently solid performance that plays well at the pay window too. He was won more than $183,000 of his $254,900 in official earnings in that torrid stretch.

And now, at 11th on the Nationwide Tour money list, he's poised to make his third trip to the PGA TOUR.

"What a great feeling,'' Whittaker said Sunday evening, the glee in his voice crackling through the telephone hook-up.

It's one Whittaker has been searching for throughout a career that has had some satisfying ups and far too many downs. Whittaker started early, taking his first lesson from none other than Arnold Palmer at the age of two. His uncle, Lanny Wadkins, set it up. It should come as no surprise that Whittaker played college golf at Wake Forest, where Palmer and Wadkins preceded him.

Whittaker followed his dream, turning professional after graduation. He headed to South Africa, where he immediately won the Sunshine Tour's Players Championship in his second start, a stunning victory that put him in the 1995 World Series of Golf. He then sailed through PGA TOUR Qualifying School in December.

Whittaker: "The club was getting stuck behind my body." (WireImage)

"Here I was thinking this was a piece of cake,'' he said. "I was young and overconfident.''

The overconfidence bit him hard in his rookie season in 1996. Overwhelmed is the best way to describe a neophyte who made eight cuts and $29,656, about the equivalent of one 40th place finish in today's PGA TOUR world.

The failure started a rubber ball journey that started in 1997 on the Nationwide Tour and bounced its way hither and yon, to the Tight Lies Tour, the Sunshine Tour and the Gateway Tour. There always was the perfunctory stop at PGA TOUR Qualifying School, where Whittaker had trouble getting out of the second stage, leaving him in golf's dead zone.

"I missed by a shot more times than I can count,'' he said, reflecting on a dark period in his career.

Whittaker believed things took a sharp turn for the better in 2004 when he won six times and was named Player of the Year on the Tight Lies Tour. But the second-stage bugaboo did him in again. He finally shook off the second-stage Q-School blues in 2005 and finished in a tie for 13th in the finals.

His second try at the PGA TOUR was better than the first, but not good enough. He improved 50 spots on the money list to 174th, making 13 cuts in 28 starts and grabbing his first top 10, but his return to the Nationwide Tour was inevitable.

"I was just happy to have status somewhere,'' he said of 2007.

Whittaker's stick-to-it attitude was rewarded in the last three months when things turned around, this time for the best.

"I always knew I was good enough,'' he said. "I just had to find a way to get back out there (to the PGA TOUR). I just wasn't going to give up until I had the opportunity to do it again.''