OK, so Scott Stallings couldn’t quite see the big picture. Difficult to do with tens of thousands of runners blocking his view. “It was a little bit of chaos the first 2 or 3 miles,” laughed Stallings. “People were on top of you.”
But the 40-year-old PGA Tour veteran is definitely big picture. He “gets it,” as they say, so he was true to his quality self when he didn’t sit quietly on the IR. His lengthy ordeal to recover from shoulder and elbow injuries in his left arm gladly pushed aside, Stallings deserves much praise for taking on the challenge of the April 21 Boston Marathon all in the name of charity.
The layers to Stallings’ saga are quite flavorful, but let’s start with the mishap that sent him to the sidelines. Trying to hit a long and difficult shot out of a fairway bunker on No. 5 at the 2024 Players Championship, Stallings got the ball out, but not without a stinging pain.
He withdrew promptly and the news wasn’t good. “I tore the labrum and my bicep that connects to the (coracoid) process. My elbow was sore, too, and it nearly popped out.”
Stallings had surgery a month later, and by October he was hitting golf balls. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long because when his doctor asked him how he felt and Stallings answered, “my hands are numb and I’m getting a tingling sensation,” an MRI entered the picture.
More bad news. The left elbow was an issue as the ulna nerve had been moved to the other side of the arm. “Definitely surprised,” said Stallings. “I know about tendons and muscles, but the nerve issue was a new to me.”
The golf status is this: Stallings has been able to hit wedges off mats and the results have been promising. “The shoulder is fine,” he said, “and the numbness and tingling (in the hands) is gone. But we’ll move to grass this week and I’ll be on sort of a ‘pitch count.’ Think of the Tommy John program for a pitcher’s recovery process (where you focus on the number of throws, then the distance).”
There’s no plan in place for his return to competition. Maybe by the fall, maybe he’ll wait till 2026. Tough spot for a guy who is now entrenched in that 40-to-45 age bracket where the challenges are well documented but herein lies a good measure of dignity that Stallings brings to the table.
Strong in body and even stronger in his faith, Stallings faces his ordeal head-on. “I got my card when I was 24 and I have had a career I’m proud of,” said the man who has earned three PGA Tour wins and $18.7m in 355 tournaments across 13 seasons. “I can hang my hat on that. I’m not itchy (in an urgent way). I will manage this (wisely). I know I still have a lot to be thankful for and I’ve got a lot of fight in me.”
Fight. Oh, boy does he ever.
All you need to do is listen to how he made the decision to run in the 129th Boston Marathon to appreciate the will that drives him.
It was the first week of November, just weeks after having surgery on his elbow when Stallings became inspired by the book he was reading,“Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness.” Written by Steve Mangess, a coach to some of the top distance runners in the world the book explored “what toughness looks like and how to build it,” said Stallings.
“I came away thinking, ‘What could I do with this time I’ll never get back?’ ”
The answer was announced to his wife, Jen. “I’m going to run the Boston Marathon.”
He concedes he was naïve as to what he was getting into and clueless about how to train. Stallings was passionate about his fitness, having whittled his 257-pound frame down to a tidy 200 thanks his commitment back in 2015-16. “That was never about golf fitness,” he said. “It was about being a better self, a better husband, a better father.”
But the grueling Boston Marathon, run over 26.2 miles of pavement with plenty of hills? “I’m lean, but I’m not strong and I’m definitely not a runner.”
So, sure, there was a touch of fear running deep within his soul, competitive as Stallings is. He had only four months to train. Nuts? Maybe. But for a guy born in Worcester, Mass., roughly 20 miles from the starting line of the Boston Marathon in Hopkinton, he was not turning his back on the challenge.
“It’s New England. It’s the greatest race in the world.”
Enter his lifeline, a charity called “Golf Fights Cancer.” It was started in 2003 by Jay Monahan and Brian Oates following the tragic death of a mutual friend. Crushed emotionally but enriched in humanitarian ways, they decided to run the Boston Marathon and raise funds.
From such humble beginnings “Golf Fights Cancer” has become a force of nature, raising over $20m and contributing to more than 75 cancer-related charities with a focus on grants that make a direct and immediate impact on patient care.
Oates has a day job, Executive Director of Sales with the New England Patriots. Monahan, of course, is Commissioner of the PGA Tour. Stallings appreciates what each man is dealing with at work – for Oates, the fund-raising machinery of the Boston Marathon comes to a climax just a few weeks before the NFL Draft; for Monahan, well, “let’s just say that he might have the weight of the world on his shoulders,” said Stallings.
But what blew Stallings away is how they go behind the curtain of their public persona and give of themselves in incredible fashion to a charity that has helped so many. “The 'Golf Fights Cancer' ” team coached me and prepared me and they were incredible,” said Stallings. “And to know that Jay has this wonderful charity . . . people need to know the work it does. It’s part of his story.”
If Stalling’s Boston Marathon experience could have been better, he’d love to know how. Easter Sunday, the day before the race, he went for a run along the Charles River under a glistening sun. There was breakfast on Newbury Street, then a game at Fenway Park to watch his beloved Red Sox. An Italian dinner in the North End? Check. Taking in Game 1 of the Celtics-Magic playoff series? Oh, yeah.
A quintessential fun-packed day for a Boston devotee who makes his home in Knoxville, Tenn.? No doubt, only what happened Monday moved his sports spirit to another level. Oates met him at the starting line, took a sip of water “then turned to me and said, ‘Let’s go for a run.’ ”
“Talk about quintessential New England,” laughed Stallings. “That was it.”
This is what a nearly unbeatable team looks like -- those who ran for Team Golf Fights Cancer in the Boston Marathon. This year they helped generate a huge charity sum, $600,000 and counting.
Running in his 29th Boston Marathon and 28th in a row, Oates moved along for a mile or two with Stallings. “I was running with a legend, but I told him, ‘You can take off now,’ ” said the PGA Tour veteran.
For Stallings, never was the run agonizing.
“I was relatively unscathed. It was a bit surprising, to tell the truth. I didn’t want this training to create havoc with my elbow, and it didn’t."
Somewhere en route to Boston, Stallings called his wife, who was in the crowd, and told her “I’m having the time of my life. I don’t want it to end.”
While most run to finish as quickly as they can, Stallings ran “as slow as I could and still make it look like I was running.”
He stared at a “Boston Strong” billboard and got emotional when he watched a husband push his wife, who has cancer and was in a wheelchair. Along Boylston Street the roars were thunderous. He spotted Jen at three different points – in Wellesley, at Heartbreak Hill, and near the finish line.
His time? It was recorded as 4 hours, 10 minutes, 19 seconds but if you count all the time he spent that evening reliving the joy and the sights and the sounds of his experience it went for hours longer than that.
In the end, “I had all my toenails but no cramps, and there were no bathroom emergencies,” laughed Stallings, and the scene Tuesday at morning at Logan Airport put a nice little bow around the trip.
The epilogue to his 2025 Boston Marathon run is still being written. The “Golf Fights Cancer” team has raised more than $600,000, but the fund-raising will go for a few more months. “Pound-for-pound, bib-for-bib we are the most efficient charity group in the race,” said Oates.
Stallings, though still on an emotional high from Boston, is back on the recovery trail, taking full swings, and getting healthy. “The longer I’m out, the more antsy I’ve become.”
Weeks after crossing the finish line after 26.2 miles, it sounds as if Stallings has another marathon in progress. The fight to get back into PGA Tour competition.
