Into everyone's life a little Ken Green must fall: the tour's bad boy is back, and he's still not pulling any punches

Golf Digest, June, 2003 by Peter McCleery

I remember how fearless I used to be in how I attacked the golf course. And all of a sudden I was the biggest coward. I'm going for a par 5, I might have 220 to the thing. If it was over water, I was laying up, because I knew I couldn't pull the trigger.

Wouldn't matter if I had a 5-wood in my hand or a 3-iron, I'd panic. That's how bad it got. I can sit here and laugh about it now, but obviously there wasn't a whole lot of laughter when I was going through it. I can't tell you how many times I would look at myself and go, What are you doing? What are you thinking about?

Any specific examples?

I remember the Bob Hope one year. Had to be '97 or '98. The whole place is a real estate development. I was actually missing the houses out-of-bounds. I didn't go in the back yards, which were facing the golf course, I was hitting the ball in the front yards. I was hitting 50, 60, 70, sometimes 80 yards off line, just because I was in such a panic.

This was before you got medication for depression?

Even during. There were two separate wars for me. The first war was just trying to get out of the depression, and then the next war was trying to get rid of the demons, as I refer to them.

There are tons and tons of people who will live their whole lives in a depression, because they don't ever seek help. And then there are the other people who are in depression who kill themselves. Obviously those people don't win the battle, either.

Ever get that desperate?

Well, I certainly was suicidal. I went to bed every night praying I didn't have to wake up and deal with this planet anymore. When you'd wake up in the morning, you were [angry] because you did wake up.

You didn't want to get out of bed sometimes?

Oh, absolutely. You'd sleep 12, 13, 14 hours. Other times you'd sleep only two.

Did you ever come close to ending it, finding yourself in a car on the edge of a cliff, like John Daly?

Every day. It wasn't a question of if, it was a question of when. It was a daily thought for about seven months. I toyed with the car in the garage, carbon monoxide. Doing that or pills. I don't think I'd have done a cliff thing--I'm scared of heights.

Was that angst caused by what was going on with your family?

There's no doubt that the reason I lost it was because of the personal problems. The divorce and losing the kids, it was too much for me. There was a five-, six-year battle. I just didn't have the strength to deal with it, and I finally collapsed.

When did you get the diagnosis?

It was probably around '98 that I went to see someone.

Was it hard for you to open up to the doctors who were treating you?

Not really, because I'm a talker. Clearly it's gotten me in trouble numerous times. I remember sitting in the doctor's office the first time. After I told him the deal, he was like, "OK, you're in a state of depression." I thought, Of course I'm depressed--life sucks pretty much right about now. I didn't understand that this is a treatable depression.

A good portion of people have to go on antidepressants for only four or five months, and they may never have to do it again. I'm not one of those. My feeling is, it's not real hard to take one pill a day.