A Stanley Cup winner straps Cody Blick into a machine with electrical pads and wet sponges and shocks his back for 90 minutes.

This sounds like the start of the worst joke of all time – but talk to Blick, and this is certainly nothing to laugh at.

Especially since he, after the ARP machine therapy courtesy of American NHL legend Bret Hedican, was able to hit golf balls as hard as he could – more than half-a-year after suffering a near career-ending back injury.

“I had to do this regiment on the machine,” said Blick, “but, man, it brought me back to life.”

A renewed sense of perspective and a healthy back have allowed Blick to earn his way back into Second Stage of Q-School as he looks to return to the Korn Ferry Tour in 2023.

Blick, a big-smiling Californian, returned to Q-School in September after struggling in 2022. He played nine tournaments and made just two cuts. The 28-year-old’s last three years have flown by, he said, after hurting his back at 25 and then navigating two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. He left his native California for Jacksonville when he realized most of the events on the Korn Ferry Tour were in the Midwest or Southeast of the United States. He had the chipping yips when he arrived in Florida, but plenty of hours on Bermuda grass got him more comfortable.

The back thing, he laughs now, was totally his fault. Two stress fractures and a half-dozen pulled muscles – a big yikes.

He hit driver poorly while playing in Alabama in 2019 and went on the range after his opening round for three hours. Blick woke up the next morning and took some Advil thinking he was OK – “We’re golfers!” – and would finish tied for 29th.

The next week in San Antonio, it hurt to walk. Took more Advil. Missed the cut. In Nashville the following week, it hurt to breathe. Time to go home.

Blick admits there were some dark days during his recovery time. He had a big-time shift in perspective on how fortunate he really was to write “professional golfer” as his vocation.

“We’re not making hardly any money, but I get to wake up and go to the gym, go the course, and do all these things to better myself and I don’t have to be like the average person sitting in a cubicle and listening to their boss. I’m just so fortunate to have this chance,” said Blick. “Even if I were to find something else to do, there would have to be this obsession. I would have to go all out.”

Blick, thankfully, didn’t end up having surgery on his back. Several weeks went by as he healed before he started up a cycle of physiotherapy. He did a three-month session focused on mobility, then flexibility, and then adding strength before he was allowed to begin hitting golf shots of 50 yards or less. On his first day, and after three or four shots, the back pain returned almost immediately. He did that cycle again but the same thing happened after three or four shots when he returned three months later.

“It’s heartbreaking,” he said.

That’s when he connected with Hedican.

“If I was a month in, sitting on the couch, I would have said, ‘Dude, you are nuts,’” said Blick with a laugh. “But at that point I was willing to do anything.

“After six or seven months (on the sidelines), I wasn’t sure if I was going to be coming back after that. But after seeing Bret, it was literally an hour-and-a-half. Maybe two hours. When you’re trying to hit a golf ball as hard as you can, I’m not sure physiotherapy would have been enough.”

Blick, now happy and healthy again, took his renewed perspective on golf – and life – into First Stage in Nebraska in mid-September where he finished tied for ninth and comfortably moved on.

His four-round effort wasn’t without drama, however. He started 71-75 and shot a 1-over 72 in the final round. But that third day was the nicest of anyone all week – a very tidy 9-under 62.

“I don’t think anything changed,” Blick bashfully admits.

Not a good story. He laughs.

“I live in Florida, so I’ve been playing Bermuda grass and I kept missing putts high (at First Stage),” he said. “I didn’t want to consciously read a putt and then pick a line a little lower, so I was just kind of waiting. Knowing that my gut instinct would kick in at some point.

“I was hitting it OK, and I was hitting a lot of putts that were burning the top edge and I didn’t change anything, to tell you the truth. I really just believed that it was going to work out.”

That belief, Blick said, is his key.

If his family wasn’t still in California, he wouldn’t go back. Except, he laughs, for Q-School. He’s played the same Bear Creek Golf Club site in Murrieta the last couple trips and he likes it. It’s hard. Fits his game. And he says he approaches Q-School a little different than almost anyone else.

“It’s weird, right? I don’t know. There’s all this tension on the range and I think I’m a little different … It sucks at the end of the year if you do have to go back to Q-School, but when you’re at First Stage, I think those are the most fun weeks of the year, as weird as that sounds,” said Blick. “When it comes to Q-School, I just believe in the hard work I put in and I just have this weird sense that if I just have fun, it’s going to work out.”