This former PGA golfer came from depths of despair, alcohol abuse. Now he wants to help you

Editor’s note: This story deals with mental health, substance abuse and suicide. If you or a loved one are struggling with such issues, call 988 or visit 988lifeline.org.

“Five minutes … 300 seconds … That’s it.

“Maybe these next five minutes help you sleep. Maybe it helps you to No. 1 in the world. Maybe it saves your marriage. Maybe it does nothing for you. Netflix ain’t going anywhere, so just keep reading.

“My name is Steve Wheatcroft, and I’m a PGA Tour has-been. I’m a 46-year-old sarcastic, self-deprecating, fun-loving old dude that can’t sit here in the silence anymore. Silence is what got me here.”

With those first three paragraphs and 17 of the seconds Steve Wheatcroft asked of our day, we think we might know a bit about the Western Pennsylvania native and First Coast transplant.

PGA Tour player. Mid-40s. Sense of humor. Likeable.

Later in a social media essay that Wheatcroft wrote on his laptop — sitting in the bleachers while his son was at a baseball practice — posted in September and reprinted on pgatour.com, we find more reasons to like him: a family man, married to his wife Sarah for 13 years, father to Chase and Emily, a fixture in the bleachers at baseball games and gymnastics meets.

Still, we don’t really know him, mainly because Wheatcroft said he didn’t know himself until he was spiraling in the throes of mental health issues and alcoholism, basically staying drunk for two years, which began one morning after a client changed his mind on a deal that would have brought Wheatcroft a substantial commission after months of a decline in business.

“I hated myself and I didn’t even know who I was,” Wheatcroft wrote in the post that introduced himself and his struggles to the world.

He admitted there was a stranger inside him, a Steve Wheatcroft with whom he had never come to terms.

“How do you hate someone you don’t even know?” he asked.

Steve Wheatcroft didn’t want a rerun

Here’s what Wheatcroft came to terms with: In a Jacksonville hospital in April, after the last of a series of trips to the emergency room for what initially was believed to be stroke-like symptoms, a doctor gave him a provisional death sentence.

“He told me my next drink might kill me,” Wheatcroft said.

After 40 days in rehab and more than four months later, Wheatcroft has put that dire diagnosis off, one day at a time.

It will always be thus but unlike the days when he was at his lowest, he has every reason to be motivated about the future.

The love of his family is paramount.

Fear is also another motivator. But, hey … whatever works.

“I haven’t wanted to drink,” he said, sitting at a table at the TPC Sawgrass restaurant, watching a light lunch crowd trickle in on a sunny, late-summer day. “The idea of another drink scares the hell out of me because I know where it’s going to lead. I’ve seen that movie. The ending doesn’t change. I cannot risk that because I know if I have that drink, I’ll be dead in two years.”

Steve Wheatcroft: Blue-collar player from a blue-collar background

“My face got hot, my hands started shaking, breathing out of control. Anxiety filled my body. I was alone in the house. Without hesitating I walked over and poured a vodka with a splash of OJ, sat down and turned on SportsCenter. That drink is where part of me died. That drink is where I gave up on life. That drink introduced me to my new best friend.”

Steve Wheatcroft was a four-sport star at Trinity High School in Washington, Pa., a working-class town about halfway between the West Virginia border and Pittsburgh, minutes from the confluence of I-79 and I-70.

It was an idyllic childhood and youth. Wheatcroft’s father was a Verizon engineer and his mother a medical transcriptionist who was able to work at home.

“Incredible parents,” he said. “It was a great place to grow up. There were no alcohol or drugs in my family, no trauma. I had a great childhood thanks to them.”

Wheatcroft was a natural athlete. At Trinity he was a power forward in basketball, pitched and played third base in baseball, and of course there was golf. He also loved skiing and playing recreational volleyball.

Wheatcroft went to the University of Indiana, walked on the golf team and became one of a line of PGA Tour players the school produced, along with Randy Leen and Jeff Overton. Wheatcroft got a degree in sports management but first set out to realize his PGA Tour dream.

Steve Wheatcroft had a roller-coaster career

Wheatcroft was a birdie machine at every level. He led IU in scoring average two years in a row. He once shot 62 in the final round for a 26-under score to win a 72-hole Gateway Tour event. Wheatcroft’s final-round scoring average in eight mini-tour victories was 67.4.

During a practice round one day at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, Wheatcroft eagled No. 16, made a hole-in-one at No. 17, then lipped out a birdie chip attempt at No. 18 — for a 62.

Wheatcroft earned his PGA Tour card for the first time at the 2007 Qualifying School, then missed 15 of 25 cuts and dropped back down to what was then the Nationwide Tour.

It took four years, but he finally won there, at the Melwood Prince Georges County Open in suburban Washington D.C. He shattered the record for victory margin (12 shots) and 72-hole score (29-under 255) with rounds of 66-60-65-64.

“That was an incredible performance,” said Len Mattiace of Jacksonville, who has played both PGA Tour and Korn Ferry events with Wheatcroft. “Steve wasn’t what you’d call a top 20 guy in driving distance but when he got on a roll, he was an unbelievable putter. A hard worker.”

Wheatcroft won one other Korn Ferry Tour event, the Boise Albertson’s Open in 2014, where he went low again at 24-under. It got him back on the PGA Tour and he finished 114th on the FedEx Cup points list the following season, earning him his only spot in The Players Championship.

Wheatcroft finished second at the American Express and eighth at the John Deere Classic in 2015. His only Players start yielded a weekend spot in 2016 when he opened with a 68. He finished 71st.

“No one was beating Jason Day that week anyway,” he said of the runaway Players winner that year.

Wheatcroft was up and down between the Korn Ferry and PGA Tours several times, but said he loved the grind. He eventually had 170 PGA Tour starts, 175 on the Korn Ferry Tour, made 65 percent of his cuts and earned more than $4.1 million.

Wheatcroft wasn’t the longest player off the tee, at a time when players were chasing distance. But he knew what scored and he was relentless in working on his wedge game and putting.

Mark Spencer, the former general manager of the University of North Florida Hayt Center, remembers Wheatcroft coming to the facility to hit balls after losing both his PGA Tour and Korn Ferry status in 2007, along with practicing privileges at the TPC Sawgrass.

“He just worked,” Spencer said. “He didn’t hang around the shop. He’d get a large bucket and hit nothing but wedges. Then he’d go to the putting green for hours. And I thought, ‘this guy lost his card and he knew what it was going to take to get it back … work on the wedges and putting.’ Instead of trying to find ways to drive it longer, he had the emotional maturity to not let it bother him that he wasn’t as long as a lot of guys. He didn’t care. He was there to get the job done.”

Wheatcroft said that despite the setbacks, he “loved the grind.”

Wheatcroft said drinking wasn’t an issue on Tour

There is a vast amount of pressure of trying to get to the PGA Tour and then stay there. It’s also a solitary sport with no home games and sometimes too much downtime on the road for many players.

But Wheatcroft said he never took to drinking to cope with playing Tour golf.

“I always assumed I could figure something out,” he said. “Sometimes it’s out of your hands. Another guy makes a bunch of putts and beats you. That’s fine. I knew that world.”

And he knew enough about his body and game to know what he couldn’t function at a high level while drinking.

“You’d get dehydrated, cramping up … what’s the point of playing golf if you can’t even swing a club?” he said. “I was good about it out there.”

But when Wheatcroft passed 40 years old in 2019, he knew he was done with competitive golf. The travel took him too far, for too long, from his family. He had a college degree, with a business minor, and figured it was time to make an honest living.

And he had no problem walking away.

Steve Wheatcroft spiraled after golf

“I can truly say I didn’t miss playing when I left the game. [But] friends that used to call and text weekly all of a sudden disappear because your golf career no longer brings them that connection to the Tour that they wanted. Friends, right? One more reason to drink.”

Wheatcroft went to work at Northwestern Mutual. His affable nature and enthusiasm earned him a company “rookie of the year” award for his district as he ran the gamut of helping people with financial services such as retirement packages, disability insurance and investments.

His second year with Northwestern was when the pandemic hit. Business took a plunge for everyone, so Wheatcroft tried not to sweat it.

Then came 2021 and the landscape hadn’t changed.

Then, when his potentially biggest deal fell through, he poured that drink and sat on his couch.

Wheatcroft said in retrospect his drinking increased during the pandemic when he began spending more time at home.

“It became an issue during COVID but I think it was for a lot of people,” he said. “All of a sudden the afternoon drinks became more normalized and a little earlier.”

When asked how much he drank during a given day, Wheatcroft didn’t have an answer.

“I can’t put a number on it,” he said. “I just knew there were cocktails at the end of the day. And that end of the day kept getting earlier and earlier.”

He quit cold turkey for two months in 2021 but relapsed after another business setback.

Sarah Wheatcroft said her husband missed the signs about how his drinking was affecting the family. He might not have been abusive, but the constant sight of a drink with no bottom in his hand became more disconcerting.

“It took a major toll on me and the kids,” she admitted.

Steve Wheatcroft’s family: ‘Enough was enough’

“I didn’t drink because I loved alcohol. I just loved that it would absolutely numb my soul and make me not feel anything. I lived in an absolute fog and wanted to. Drinks were like a warm blanket. Steve the golfer was an extrovert that loved being around others. The new Steve didn’t want ANYONE around. “Steve the golfer” was dead and gone.

Steve the husband and father was almost dead and gone.

His weight ballooned to nearly 300 pounds and he couldn’t walk the family dog a block without getting out of breath.

Then came the trips to the emergency room. The last trip came when Wheatcroft felt he couldn’t take a step without collapsing.

“I’d get insanely light-headed,” he said. “I just felt like I could fall over at any point. It wasn’t any symptoms I had before.”

His wife and parents had urged him to seek help beyond ER trips. Eventually they targeted a treatment center on Jacksonville’s Southside, Lakeview Health.

Sarah Wheatcroft said getting her husband to enter Lakeview was the toughest part.

“I remember that we had to force him to the hospital and then force him to rehab,” she said.

“My wife and parents just said, ‘enough was enough,'” Wheatcroft said.

Wheatcroft lost 50 pounds in rehab

Wheatcroft spent nearly six weeks at Lakeview. He was not allowed contact with his family for 11 days and after that he was permitted one 10-minute phone call on the weekends.

The schedule was regimented, with classes, group sessions and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in the evening. With no drinking and workouts in the facility’s gym, Wheatcroft lost 50 pounds in the first 50 days.

And one day at a time, he came to grips with himself and his problems.

“I was there for three days, and I knew I was never going to drink again,” he said. “It takes a lot of self-reflection … they are not easy conversations to have with yourself and that’s why I put it off for so long, because I would get drunk and never have to answer those questions.”

Wheatcroft said the biggest impact of his time at Lakeview were encounter sessions and conversations with other patients, from all walks of life. It’s not uncommon for alcoholics to think their problems are unique, that no one else in the world is going through what they are.

He said the epiphany was learning that wasn’t the case.

“There are people who I had hardly anything in common with but we had one thing: we were all fighting the same exact mental battle,” he said. “Hearing their stories made it so much easier to realize I was never going to drink again. I wasn’t the first one to go through this.”

Wheatcroft said therapy, medication and being the object of judgmental thinking weren’t going to help him.

“Maybe seeing a therapist and taking medication works for a lot of people,” he said. “You go to a stranger, they dig deep into your childhood, you get labeled and you’re prescribed medication,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. That’s still an avenue to go down. But opening up, talking to people is what worked for me.”

One of his biggest fears when he first got to rehab was the process of talking to people and telling his own story. Wheatcroft said he was more nervous at his first AA meeting than at any time on the golf course when he was trying to win a tournament.

“I felt so out of place … I didn’t think I belonged,” he said. “The next thing you know, you’re opening up. Then you see other new people open up. And you realize you’re all in it together.”

Grayson Murray’s death shook golf to the core

“It took three days to understand I was never going to drink again. I just needed to understand the reasons and the whys. That part was simple. I spent the rest of the time trying to figure out who Steve was and why he drank. The miracle is that I get to create MY version of the next Steve.”

It was while Wheatcroft was at Lakeview in May that he went to one of the common areas of the facility to watch TV. He was watching a tournament on Golf Channel when the news broke that Grayson Murray, who had won his first Tour event at the Sony Open in January, had died.

Even though Murray’s parents didn’t release the information until days later that their son committed suicide, Wheatcroft said he suspected as much.

“That hurt a lot,” Wheatcroft said when he saw the news about Murray. “Basically, I was going through the same thing he was.”

Murray’s death and Wheatcroft going public about his issues seem to have jolted the professional golf world into a new reality about mental health. And Wheatcroft said it wasn’t just Murray — he knows of a caddie and an equipment rep that have committed suicide.

“When you have swing problems, you go to your coach, right,” he said. “If you’re having putting problems, there’s someone to see. Your shoulder hurts, there’s a physical therapist. Why does seeking help for mental health carry a different stigma than that?”

Andy Levinson, the PGA Tour’s senior vice-president for tournament administration, is determined to make Murray the last example of a Tour player who believed there was no hope.

“After Grayson’s passing it certainly spurred some people to be more comfortable talking about it,” Levinson said. “We always try to tell them our resources are there for them. They don’t have to go through us, and we don’t want to be a barrier for them seeking help. We’re encouraging players and caddies, if they’re struggling, to ask for help.”

The Tour already had its Mental Wellness Program, with a private, 24-hour hotline for players to call that can provide mental health resources anywhere in the world. It also has a partnership with the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee mental health registry, the eHome Counseling Service and WellTrack app.

The Tour formed a Mental Health Task Force: David Conant-Norville, a psychiatric consultant to the US Anti-Doping Agency, the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour; Jessica Bartley, Director of Mental Health Services for the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee; Tom Hospel, the Tour’s Medical Officer, and Eric Kussin, the former chief revenue officer of the Florida Panthers who went through his own serious mental health issues and after his recovery, formed samehereglobal.org, a global mental health movement.

Wheatcroft and Levinson both said Kussin, who also was an executive with the Phoenix Suns and New Jersey Devils, has been instrumental in the Tour’s evolving efforts to help players with their mental health.

“Eric has a great perspective and we have bounced ideas off him for many years,” Levinson said. “I think because he was in pro sports, he can understand what someone is going through as a pro athlete. He is just one element of a suite of services we make available to our players. The important thing we stress is that they talk to someone.”

Mattiace, who has a charity devoted to curbing bullying among middle-school students, said the Tour “is on the right track.”

“Thirty or 40 years ago, no one addressed mental health on the Tour, but it’s always been there,” he said. “Mental health is a problem in all walks of life, starting with our kids and I think the Tour is addressing it.”

Kussin says ‘binary thinking’ about mental health is outdated

Kussin, who said he developed mental health problems after a series of personal setbacks such as the death of several friends and a brother’s ongoing health problems, said society stigmatizes those with mental health problems by all-too-easy labels and categorizations.

“Mental health is looked at too much in the binary,” said Kussin, whose organization motto is “We’re all a little crazy.”

He scoffed at a frequently-cited industry statistic that estimates 20 percent of the population has some form of mental health issue.

“It’s divided into who has the issue and who doesn’t,” he said. “That’s not the reality of mental health. That’s not the reality of any health. Go to a doctor and step on a scale, get your blood pressure taken, body mass, blood sugar … everything is a range. The reality is our nervous system lives on a continuum, just like physical health.”

Kussin, who said he was prescribed a combination of more than 50 medications and underwent Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Ketamine delivered through IV and Electro-Convulsive Therapy without success, said everyone is susceptible to mental health issues.

He finally found a therapist who went with a more holistic approach that treated the mind, body and central nervous system at the same time, along with the old-school method that worked for Wheatcroft: the therapist talked to him and got to the root of his pain, not applying band-aids.

“We’re all affected by life’s traumas,” he said. “The physiological and biological changes that are happening to us and our body over time continue to mount and accumulate. Steve’s story is a slower roll into how all this builds up.”

Kussin said the golf course is not a ‘sanctuary’

Kussin called a mental health crisis a “disregulation” of the nervous system and said even though Wheatcroft professed to enjoy the grind of trying to make it on the PGA Tour, there was pressure building up that he didn’t realize.

“Our eyes are a video camera, and the brain and body are the hard drive that stores all of the life events inside,” he said. “They don’t go away. They have to find a place to live inside us. Burying ourselves in our work is covering up. It’s a dopamine hit and when that goes away, you have to find something to replace it.”

What now, for Steve Wheatcroft?

“I assume as this point, you’re looking for what worked for me. What was the magic prescription. What was the intense therapy I did?

TALK

Talk to a friend, talk to a therapist, talk to another golfer, talk to your caddie, just —-ing talk.”

Steve Wheatcroft’s initial thoughts were to work for the PGA Tour staff to travel to tournaments and counsel players. That hasn’t panned out as yet.

But he’s taking action. Wheatcroft has launched The Mulligan Foundation, which will provide mental health services for athletes.

“To empower athletes by providing comprehensive mental health services that promote emotional well-being, resilience, and enjoyment of the game,” said the foundation’s mission statement.

Wheatcroft also launched a podcast, “The Uncomfortable Chat,” which will focus on golf and life stories, mental health and substance abuse.

“Just real talk that most people don’t talk about,” he said.

The first episode featured friend and former Tour player Sam Saunders.

Mattiace agreed that the simple act of conversation could be the best medicine.

“Let’s talk … let’s put everything out there on the table,” he said. “I applaud Steve for going public and wanting to keep this conversation going.”

Wheatcroft traded short-term comfort for long-term solutions

Wheatcroft also is catching up on lost time with his family and is a stay-at-home dad. Sarah Wheatcroft is running a thriving insurance business and neither one has any problem with the role reversal.

“He’s a completely changed person after going through all of this,” she said. “He is a way better father. He’s the father they’ve needed.”

She also thinks her husband can serve as an example of what can happen once someone with mental health issues and substance abuse gets the courage to turn their lives around.

“I remember the lack of courage he once had, when we had to force him to go the hospital and force him to go to rehab,” she said. “Once that happened it took courage to stick with it and then to go public the way he did. I’m glad he put it out there. My faith in him is back.”

Wheatcroft said one key he learned was that one drink, followed by another, and another, will never provide more than temporary relief.

“You have those drinks and you feel better for a couple of hours,” he said. “None of the problems ever went away. Then you’d feel depressed because you’re drinking again. You have to ask yourself, ‘what’s positive or negative … how bad do I need that drink.’”

Instead of the drink, Wheatcroft goes to the gym, takes a walk, plays recreational golf and throws himself into his family.

He was bubbling over with enthusiasm in telling the story of shagging fly balls with his son during a recent baseball practice.

“One hundred times more fulfilling,” he said.

Kussin said Wheatcroft’s message can be more powerful than that of athletes such as Olympians Michael Phelps and Simone Biles, because his fall and recovery didn’t involve more glory in his sport.

The glory came in the embrace of his family and his survival.

“When Michael Phelps shared his story in a documentary [‘The Weight of Gold’], it was about returning to the challenges of waking up at 4 a.m. to be in the pool,” Kussin said. “That resonates with about .00001 percent of people. This is why Steve’s story is so powerful. He shares life’s everyday stuff and how it disregulates you. He welcomes them into his story instead of excluding them.”

Levinson said Wheatcroft’s analogy of mental health being no different to deal with than a pulled muscle or faulty backswing is a conversation that needs to go forward.

“The goal is for athletes to get mental health they way as going to a swing coach,” he said. “It’s a stigma we have to break down and the best thing to do is continue to talk about it. Give players the resources they can use and more importantly, tell them it’s okay to not be okay.”

If Steve Wheatcroft could give everyone in pain or depression a hug, he would tell them that.

You’re okay.

Let’s talk.

“You can keep your labels. I was never diagnosed with depression. I’m sure I had it, but I didn’t need the label to know how I felt. Life is tough and you’ll always have some sort of stress. I just want you to have resources to work through them other than ‘suck it up.’ Don’t bury them, hoping they’ll go away. I can attest, they won’t.“

Everyone knows certain demons. It’s the demons you don’t know of yet that you always need to be ready for.”

Where can pro athletes on the First Coast get help?

• In addition to their PGA Tour Mental Wellness Program, players on the PGA Tour, Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Champions players are encouraged to visit samehereglobal.org/pgatour-peer-to-peer. The resources on that website are also available to anyone.

• Jacksonville Jaguars players, past or present, can get help by visiting totalwellness.nfl.com and the Players Association at nflpa.com.

• Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp baseball players have assistance available through the Major League Baseball Players Association Mental Health and Awareness program. They also visit RADicalhopefoundation.org, which partners with Minor League Baseball.

• Members of the Jacksonville Ice Men of the East Coast Hockey League have resources through the Professional Hockey Players Association at phpa.com.

• This story was updated to add new information.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Golfer Steve Wheatcroft could no longer be silent about alcohol abuse