More than a decade later, May hopes to again have his day

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Bob May is tied for 19th at q-school, sitting inside the line for his 2012 card with three rounds remaining.

LA QUINTA, Calif. -- More than a decade later, the paths of Tiger Woods and Bob May cross again. Sort of.

A couple hundred miles of desert and mountain and freeway separate the Chevron World Challenge and the final stage of q-school, but that's about as close as May has come to Woods -- figuratively and in some respects literally -- since their memorable playoff at the 2000 PGA Championship at Valhalla.

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"I get asked about it all the time," says May. "The funny thing is the first thing I say to people is can you tell me when that was and they say it was a few years ago. Yea, it's a few years; it's going on 12 years.

"It goes by quick, man. I wonder where last year went."

Where May went since that August day was off the map.

He injured his back at the 2003 EDS Byron Nelson Championship and didn't play again on the PGA TOUR until the 2006 AT&T National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach.

May suffered from spinal stenosis, which is a narrowing of the spinal column that causes pressure on the spinal cord, or narrowing of the openings where spinal nerves leave the spinal column. He had to have his spinal nerve canal routed out from the L3 to the S1 vertebrae in his lower back.

"With stenosis, any slight bulge feels like a major bulge," May said. "I was on 10 weeks bed rest. I went from bed, to the shower, back to bed. I didn't go anywhere. I didn't swing a golf club for three years."

When May was able to swing a club, he reinjured his back and missed all of 2005, save for a trip to q-school, after undergoing surgery.

By the time May made it back to the TOUR he was a shadow of his former self, and his stay wouldn't last long. He made 12 of 21 cuts in 2006, which included a runner-up (of course) at the B.C. Open. A year later, he made nine of 16 cuts but finished 189th on the money list.

Over the next four years, May would make just six more starts on TOUR and spend two years on the Nationwide Tour -- until this year.

Without status, and his epic duel with Tiger having long disappeared from the rearview mirror, May didn't manage a single sponsor exemption on the Nationwide Tour, where he made just six starts. He also played his way into two PGA TOUR events.

The rest of the year May spent practicing at his home in Las Vegas. "I just kept myself sharp so when I did get the chance I was ready," he said.

Now he has that chance. If May can finish in the top 25 at q-school -- he's tied for 19th through three rounds -- he'll be back on TOUR full time for the first time since 2007.

Through it all, though, May never said "Why me?"

"I never wonder [what might have been had I won the PGA," May said. "You can, but you never know what could've happened. You can't cry over spilled milk, isn't that what they say?

"It's frustrating though because a lot of guys walk away from this game when things aren't going well and that's easy to do. But when it's taken away from you because of an injury, it's a real eye-opener. You don't realize how good we have it. It opened my eyes to a lot of things because when I was back playing you don't realize how much people are giving you and throwing at you. A lot of it is taken for granted. Some people have never had that downfall."

Woods of course has, albeit of a different kind and for different reasons, and he, too, is working his way back -- perhaps all the way back to the position he once held when he beat May at Valhalla.

As for May, whose hair is now gray at the edges, he doesn't mind being asked about that 2000 PGA. It's forever part of who he is.

"The great thing was when I did challenge Tiger it was when he was at his best," May said. "I did something great at the time and people remember it. That's better than people not remembering anything. I think I got just as much publicity for losing the playoff to Tiger as I would have had I won it.

"If I were to go back to then I probably never thought I would be here. But the good thing is now I'm hitting the ball better now than I did then."