Triplett takes time off to heal his right elbow

It’s not unusual to find Kirk Triplett rambling around his Scottsdale, Ariz., home in the late summer, catching up on some family time with his wife, Cathi, and their four children.

The former Pullman resident and 20-year veteran of the PGA Tour normally frontloads his tournament schedule with a cluster of stops in the winter and early spring before cutting back his travel during the dog days of late July and early August.

But this summer, Triplett has dropped completely off the Tour’s radar after opting to undergo surgery to repair ligament damage in his right elbow.

The 43-yeard-old went under the knife back on July 21, just 10 days after shooting a second-round 77 and missing the cut in the John Deere Classic. He hasn’t touched a golf club since.

“I had some tendinitis and ligament damage that just wouldn’t heal,” Triplett explained during a phone conversation from his home earlier this week. “It was nothing serious, just one of those aches-and-pains kind of deals that finally got to the point where I felt it was hurting my golf game.

“Everyone said the best cure was rest and I thought, ‘Well, if I’m going to rest, I might as well get it fixed.’ “

Prior to his surgery, Triplett had played in 16 events this year and earned $579,958 to bring his career winnings to $12,430,473. His best finish came at the Accenture Match Play Championship, where he finished in a tie for ninth place and pocketed $125,000.

He also tied for 17th at The Players Championship and the Masters, earning $112,000 in each event.

But, by his own admission, he was playing “terrible golf.”

“The elbow was just gradually getting worse,” Triplett said. “The worst thing about this kind of injury is that it was taking more and more of my time just to get ready to play.”

As a result, Triplett was spending more hours in the Tour’s medical trailer than he was on the practice range. It showed in the scores he was posting.

“I had seen my swing speed drop 5-6 miles per hour,” he said. “And then I look at my stats … I mean, I’m typically a pretty solid player. I was just playing terrible golf and actually felt lucky to have made as much money as I had.

“So I figured I might as well get the elbow fixed and see if that was the problem. If it isn’t, then I’ve got other issues.”

Triplett is just a little more than five weeks out from his surgery and has replaced the cast he was wearing to protect the elbow with a removable splint. He has regained full range of motion in the joint, but has yet to regain his strength.

Still, he aims to rejoin the Tour in late October in hopes of maintaining his spot among the Tour’s top 125 money winners, who are exempt from tournament qualifying.

“First you have to get back physically, and then you have to work on regaining your skills,” Triplett said. “So, there will be an adjustment period.”

Triplett sits 103rd on the money list and expects to drop out of the top 125 before he returns to the Tour. But he likes his chances of retaining his exempt status for next year, provided he is healthy enough to play in the FUNAI Classic (Oct. 17-23) and the Chrysler Championship (Oct. 24-30).

“If I’m healthy by the last couple of weeks in October, there’s no reason I can’t make enough money to get back in the top 125,” Triplett said. “You look at my record over the years in those two events and I’ve averaged $40,000-$50,000 in each event.

“I really don’t see it as being some big, huge insurmountable mountain to climb.”

Even if it proves otherwise, Triplett could regain his spot in the top 125 next year under the PGA Tour’s medical exemption policy.

“The guys in the top-125 category usually play an average of about 28 events a year,” Triplett said. “I’ve only played in 16 so far this year, so under the medical exemption rule I would get 10-12 events next year to reach the amount of money needed to keep your Tour card this year.

“My goal, in that case, would be to regain my exempt status by the Players Championship next year.”

Of greater concern to Triplett is his status in the World Golf Rankings, which gives players in the top 50 exemptions to the World Golf Championship, The Masters and several other major tournaments.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to be in or around that top 50 the last five or six years,” said Triplett, who has dropped to 79th in the prestigious rankings, “so I’ve been able to play in some of those big events. That was the toughest thing about making the decision to have the surgery. But when you look at it, I was losing points like crazy because I was playing so bad.

“I won’t lose as many points by not playing, but I’ll lose the big base of points I’ve built up over the last two years, so I’ll have to start from scratch.”

Despite jeopardizing his exempt status and position in the World Golf Rankings, Triplett refuses to second-guess his decision to shut down his golf game.

“A lot of guys in my situation think, ‘I’ll stick it out until I make that next $100,000 and then quit after that,’ ” Triplett said. “But why do that when you’re not healthy? If you’re not feeling good, it might take you 10 events to do it. If you’re feeling OK, you might do it in two.”

“That was my thinking. I think I’m still very competitive on Tour, and I hope to play for 10-15 more years. I made my decision based on that.”