CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA | With the wind whipping across the exposed Country Club of Charleston property on an otherwise idyllic day, Austin Langdale sits down on the back patio next to the blooming pink azaleas. He is frustrated with a couple of late mistakes in his second round that have caused him to narrowly miss the 36-hole cut in the Azalea Invitational, a home state tournament where he has a lengthy history, but he’s also grateful just to be sitting here after a competitive round against some of the nation’s top amateurs.
Langdale’s ongoing battle with Multiple Sclerosis – a chronic disease that disrupts the central nervous system and, on average, shortens a sufferer’s lifespan by a handful of years – in addition to past shoulder injuries stunted what was a promising competitive career. Now the 27-year-old is an experiential lead at TaylorMade, serving as a club fitter and salesman, while he also opens the book on being a mid-amateur re-establishing himself on the course.
“I got to such a low point, it was not good,” Langdale told Global Golf Post. “You come out here and you want to compete and you want to grind, but I’m also just thankful to be here. What I’ve been through, it really puts all of this in perspective.”
Langdale won the Azalea in 2013 when he was a high school senior, defeating the likes of Cameron Champ, Greyson Sigg and some mid-am stars like Scott Harvey, Gene Elliott and Nathan Smith. It wasn’t a surprise. Coming out of Townville, South Carolina, in the shadow of Clemson University, Langdale was dominant in Anderson County competitions. He was born two days apart from Carson Young, and the two cut their teeth at Boscobel Golf & Country Club while developing into stellar junior players who were ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in South Carolina.
Among their many top finishes, Young won the prestigious Junior Invitational at Sage Valley in 2013 while Langdale finished in a tie for second. Langdale made the high school state championship six years in a row because he was able to play for the Pendleton High School team prior to being a freshman, and he finished runner-up in the state championship four years straight, twice to Young and twice to future Clemson teammate Cody Proveaux. Langdale and Young were shoo-ins to not only attend Clemson but make an immediate impact on the Tiger golf program, and their trajectories were once just as similar as their birthdays.
Langdale’s career got off to a strong start when he won the Cleveland Golf Intercollegiate over Derek Bard, and he was the first Tiger freshman since Kyle Stanley (2007) to post a top-10 finish in the ACC Championship. While he was able to still play some great golf the remainder of his career – Langdale made first-team All-ACC in 2015-16, registered two top 15s in NCAA Regionals and was the emotional leader of a Clemson team that consistently got better each year he was there – his story began to include a lot of “what if” scenarios around his health.
It started when he tweaked his shoulder in the gym his sophomore year. After the injury lingered longer than he hoped, Langdale had some scans done and took two epidural steroid injections around the same time he coincidentally had a flu shot. Something wasn’t right. Langdale described the initial reaction as similar to Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a rare nerve-damaging disorder that has been shown to occur in a small percentage of people following a flu vaccination.
“It got to the point where I was struggling to go to class,” Langdale said. “The right side of my body started to shut down. And at that point, quality of life was a bigger thing and I didn't really know if golf was going to be a thing.”
Unbeknownst to Langdale, the mystery had only just started. As he soldiered through some weird effects, such as his body fading in and out of a tingly, numbing state, Langdale noticed the issues had virtually disappeared. His shoulder pain was nagging and persistent, but not enough to derail him.
His golf improved. Langdale earned All-American honorable mention his junior season and established himself as a top player in the conference. He was the low man on the team when Clemson returned to the 2016 NCAA Championship after several years of disappointment.
The end of that junior year, however, saw more health issues. Langdale was in the top 10 at the NCAA Karsten Creek Regional when he stood on the 18th tee – he took the club back and felt a shooting pain in his left arm. He lost two balls in the process and recorded an 8 on the home hole. While he took painkillers to play in the ensuing NCAA Championship, he needed an evaluation of his shoulder shortly after the season ended. The result: a partially torn rotator cuff.
Langdale was administered a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection, but nothing improved and surgery had to be done. Bitterly disappointed that the momentum of his best season had been halted, Langdale played most of his senior year but described it as “a wash” because he couldn’t trust his shoulder. Adding insult to injury, he had a freak accident prior to the ACC Championship where he jammed his wrist and tore a tendon while hitting a full wedge shot from an into-the-grain zoysia fairway. He missed the conference tournament, which was being played in South Carolina close to his hometown, and could only offer minor contributions at regionals and the NCAA Championship.
“If we could have kept him healthy, there is really no telling how great of a player he could be,” said former Clemson coach Larry Penley. “For whatever reason, he had nagging injuries and illnesses that really set back his golf. But he was a big-game player. The bigger the stakes, the better he played.”
Langdale turned pro after his senior season, chasing mini tours and Korn Ferry Tour Monday qualifiers. He had already signed up for Korn Ferry Q-School and planned on pushing forward with his pro aspirations when his health nightmare continued.
“If somebody came up and offered me 20 grand for six months and said ‘go play,’ I probably would do it. Just because I think I could still do it.”
AUSTIN LANGDALE
That July of 2017, the weird, numbing symptoms he experienced during his sophomore season had returned. Langdale went back to the same neurologist he had seen earlier in college.
“I was having brain MRIs and getting used to laying in a tube because basically nobody could figure it out,” Langdale said. “I kept hearing the same thing about how ‘nothing is wrong’ and ‘we can’t see anything.’ It was just frustrating because I knew something was definitely wrong. I ended up withdrawing from Q-School and getting most of my money back, but mentally, I was not in a good place. I was tough to be around. The doctors couldn’t figure out what’s going on, my body felt like crap. … You know, I was just angry all the time, just agitated all the time.”
The answer came that September, just a few months after he turned professional. Langdale had submitted a spinal tap sample and the MS diagnosis was official.
“It was bad news that it was MS but it was good news in a way mentally because I knew there was a plan going forward and we knew how to treat it,” Langdale said.
Langdale had to self-administer an injection every other day, rotating to different fatty parts of the body. Every time he did the shot, it would leave a big welt. He eventually switched doctors who offered him a pill medication – without insurance, even a 30-day supply would be unaffordable for most people. A 2017 study published in the National Library of Medicine found that MS medicines cost an average of $70,000 per person annually when not including insurance. Luckily, Langdale’s drug has been mostly covered by insurance and the cost is reasonable.
The odd symptoms on the right side of his body slowly stabilized, although he does have some numbing in his hands and chronically deals with classic MS symptoms. He has to go back to the doctor every few months to check to see if there are any new spinal cord lesions. It’s milder than what it once was, but there are still difficulties.
“If you fall asleep on your arm and then wake up, that’s kind of what it is like all the time,” Langdale said. “If it’s really cold or really hot, the body doesn’t adjust very well. Overall, I’m very lucky. I can go get blood work done every few months. It’s frustrating having to go to the doctor sometimes because it doesn’t feel like I need to be there, but at the same time, knowing how MS could progress … I mean, in 10 years, who knows what it will be like physically.”
Despite this struggle of facing an auto-immune disease, he continued plugging away in the professional game as long as he could.
“It was just still being stubborn, I guess, wanting to try to chase the dream,” Langdale said.
By 2018, the reality had set in for a player who had all the gifts to make it professionally. That didn’t mean he was going to leave golf, however. Langdale had been giving junior clinics on the side when a TaylorMade rep had reached out to Langdale’s swing coach. There is a 120,000-square-foot TaylorMade ball plant in nearby Liberty, South Carolina, so the company has a connection to the area and was looking for someone with club-fitting experience to travel around the western Carolinas region attending demo days and trying to help golfers get into the right set of clubs.
Langdale has considered himself a gear head from a young age, so it was a natural fit. Even at Clemson, Penley noticed how technical his player would be.
“He’s always been very meticulous with his clubs,” Penley said. “This is right in his wheelhouse. He’s always tweaked his wedges, always piddling with swing weights and different clubs. When he got this job with TaylorMade, it’s perfect. He’s really good at what he does and he’ll be really patient with people on the range. He’ll stay out there until he gets it right.”
Langdale got his amateur status back in the summer of 2018. He has played sparingly, competing in a couple of pro-ams and small local events in addition to coming to the Azalea the last three years. He is hoping to compete in the Palmetto Amateur later this year and perhaps qualifying for a U.S. Mid-Am could be on the table one of these years.
In a way, it is all still frustrating. His former running mate, Young, won on the Korn Ferry Tour earlier this year and is firmly in line to get his PGA Tour card. Ben Martin, another close friend, led through three rounds before sharing runner-up at last week’s Corales Puntacana Championship. A couple of weeks ago, the friends had a casual game on the Chanticleer Course at Greenville Country Club and Langdale took money off of both of them. Langdale also talks about another player he grew up with, Matt NeSmith, who has publicly admitted he thought about quitting golf not long before he made the PGA Tour and has enjoyed recent success at the highest level.
That’s the allure and horror of golf. The margins are so ridiculously thin. What separates Langdale from his peers? Not much in terms of talent. Health luck has gone against him. His priorities are now with his wife and his family. But still, it’s hard to ever let go of that dream.
“If somebody came up and offered me 20 grand for six months and said ‘go play,’ I probably would do it.” Langdale said. “Just because I think I could still do it. I know the golf didn’t show this week, but I have the belief I can still do it.”
That belief is matched by his gratitude. He’s healthy enough to play against some of the top amateurs in the country at the Azalea, which was won Sunday by Luke Clanton. He’s healthy enough to enjoy this experience on a classic golf course with his father, Aaron, guiding a push cart next to him, encouraging him each step of the way.
It’s a beautiful day.
“I don’t take it for granted that I’m still out here.”
Top: Despite missing the cut, Austin Langdale is grateful he can still play events like the Azalea Invitational.
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