"Denis has an incredible story," said noted swing instructor David Leadbetter, a friend of Watson's since they grew up together in Rhodesia. "It's like somebody coming out of a coma."

There were Watson's first 30 years, when he was a rising star in golf: He won three times on the PGA Tour in 1984, including a victory at the World Series of Golf. He was runner-up to Andy North in the 1985 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills and seemed poised for a long, wonderful career.

"I had all these expectations," Watson said.

But everything changed with one swing. Something that took less than five seconds altered his life, sending him into a spiral for more than a decade.

He lost his health, his career, his family and most of his money.

Late in 1985, Watson was leading the Goodyear Classic in South Africa in the final round when his tee shot disappeared into the left rough. He tried to lay up with a 9-iron, not realizing there was a small stump under his ball. The root snagged around the club as he was driving through the ball, the force causing his club to recoil 5 yards behind him.

Watson had no idea what he had just done to his body. All he knew was he was in a lot of pain. He somehow held on to win the event, but he paid a price.

Watson had suffered a severe jolt of whiplash. He had nerve damage in his right hand, with the damage eventually moving up through his wrist, forearm and elbow and all the way to his shoulder. He didn't know it at the time, but the injury also punctured a hole in a disk that caused spinal fluid to leak.

"I'll never forget being in the doctor's office and being told that I had to have surgery and that I would never play competitive golf again," Watson said. "That was pretty tough to hear."

Nor was it pleasant a short time later when his wife at the time, Hillary, left him for another pro golfer named Watson - Tom Watson. At that point, Denis Watson already had endured a half-dozen operations. "My life was rehab," he said.

Another pro golfer who grew up in Rhodesia (the nation now known as Zimbabwe) said it was as if Watson had disappeared. During a 14-year stretch, Watson played in just 30 tournaments.

"Denis has been a mystery to a lot of us because he basically dropped off the face of the world for 15 years," said Nick Price of Jupiter Island. "I could never really understand him, the way he didn't get out and at least compete. He said it was injuries. I think it was a lot of things."

Leadbetter helped Watson by paying him to give lessons and steering him to a job as a Golf Channel analyst.

"We all felt bad for him," Leadbetter said. "So many things had gone wrong."

But that all changed with a lesson. Loggans, a high-powered trial lawyer who was based in Chicago, wanted to get serious about playing golf, so she had one of her associates contact his college roommate, golf pro Bruce Fleisher of Palm Beach Gardens.

Fleisher didn't want to go to Chicago to give lessons to an amateur. When Loggans heard Leadbetter was one of the game's top teachers, she asked him to come, but he said he didn't give amateurs lessons at their homes unless she wanted to pay an exorbitant price ($15,000 a day). That's when Fleisher ran into Watson at an airport and told him about Loggans.

"I told Bruce I had another client in Chicago, so I agreed to see Susan," Watson said.

They started working together, and within six months their relationship grew. Their first date was a trip to the 1997 Ryder Cup at Valderrama in Spain.

"I had never heard of Denis before I met him," Loggans said. "I had no idea what he had been through."

She turned out to be the perfect mate for Watson. Not only did she have the financial resources to help him through the difficult times, but also she saw someone who could still play top-notch golf - when healthy.

"As a person who believes in greatness, I thought it would be a waste of his talent if he didn't keep playing," said Loggans, who started her law firm at 27. "I believe one of the biggest reasons he didn't want to play was he was having a physical reaction to a lot of bad luck. If he had happiness in his life, maybe that would free him up to play again."

Loggans, who has a master's degree in psychology, worked on her husband's psyche.

"I felt he had unreasonable expectations, thinking he should always hit the ball next to the pin," she said. "I asked him as a favor to try and be reasonable with his expectations and to compliment himself when he did something well instead of being down when he wasn't perfect."

With his 50th birthday approaching, Watson slowly worked back into competitive golf. But it wasn't easy. He and Leadbetter had to rebuild a swing that Leadbetter said "had no life in it."

Watson entered some Nationwide Tour events, becoming the second-oldest player (behind Jack Nicklaus) to make a cut on that tour. Watson joined the Champions Tour in late 2005, but he hadn't escaped all of his bad luck. He missed most of the 2006 season after having surgery on his right shoulder.

But last year he was healthy, allowing some of his talent to reappear. The highlight was a final-round 68 to win the Senior PGA Championship, one of the tour's five majors, at Kiawah Island, S.C.

"Winning the Senior PGA was the most spectacular thing to happen to me in golf," he said. "That validated my desire to be a golf professional."

Read More: Denis Watson gets another chance [Palm Beach Post]