John Peterson comes out of retirement after Tiger Woods' inspiring win at the Masters
John Peterson came up just short multiple times last year on the PGA Tour.
Peterson was playing on the PGA Tour on a medical extension, which stemmed from a surgery on his left hand in 2016. He had just eight events to either make $375,165 or earn 274 FedExCup points to gain conditional status for the rest of the season, according to the PGA Tour.
Yet at The Greenbrier, his last possible event, Peterson finished just 0.586th of a point short of earning that conditional status. His time on the PGA Tour was over.
So he gave it one last chance, attempting to earn Tour status back through the Web.com Tour — knowing that if he failed, he would call it a career.
And when he didn’t make it through the Web.com Tour Finals, he stepped away. The three-time All-American and national champion at LSU got a job in real estate, and was happy.
His golf life was behind him.
Then, though, came Tiger Woods’ inspiring performance at Augusta National earlier this month.
Woods won the Masters by one stroke, grabbing his first major victory in nearly 11 years and providing the sports world with what will go down as perhaps the greatest comeback in sports history.
That’s when Peterson realized he had to get back in.
"Sometimes you've got to take a step back to realize what you had," Peterson told ESPN Radio in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. "I was in an office for seven months, and it was fine when I started, I was paying the bills.
"Then the Masters came along, and I'm watching this kid Patrick Cantlay, who in 2011 finished second to me in the national championship when he was at UCLA, and he's finishing ninth in the Masters. It's on TV, and I beat him, and I beat him a lot, and I'm just like, 'Man, that could be me.'
"And then Tiger wins, with his story, it was just so inspiring, honestly. And I quit my job, seriously, the next day after the Masters."
Being completely removed from the game, Peterson will have to start from scratch to get his Tour status back, and he sounds extremely confident that he will do so.
Even though he has an uphill battle, it’s only fitting that Woods — who inspired so many other players on Tour and completely changed the golf world — inspired one more player to get back in the game.
"I'm taking a big risk, and I really don't have any place to play right now 100 percent, so I have to qualify and stuff," Peterson told ESPN. "I will get back. I know I will. It's just kind of a regret watching the guys that I played with my whole life finish top-10 in the majors and just knowing I can do it."
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