Immelman is showing them something

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- “Do you want to see it?”

The man leading at the halfway point of the Masters was not talking about a club or a swing.

He was talking about a scar.

“Most guys have seen it.”

The man leading after two rounds of the Masters wasn’t talking about a ball or a tee.

He was talking about a tumor.

“I went from winning a tournament to lying in a hospital bed waiting for results on a tumor,” Trevor Immelman said. “So definitely it made me realize that golf wasn’t my whole life.”

Maybe not his whole life, but it certainly will be his entire weekend, this South African who stands 48 hours from joy only four months after despair.

Trevor Immelman is leading the Masters by one stroke with a slice that is not in his game, but in his back.

In the third week of December, he was playing in a pro-am in his native South Africa when he felt discomfort in his rib cage. He finished the round only with a golf bag full of painkillers.

The next day, the pain increased such that he could barely breathe. He withdrew from the tournament, climbed into an MRI machine, and climbed out thinking about a death sentence. “The doctor said there was something that had to come out,” Immelman remembered.

That something was a tumor that, according to Immelman, looked like a golf ball on a tee.

Four days later, he underwent surgery. Surgeons entered through a seven-inch incision in his back.

Two days later, those doctors announced that the calcified fibrosis tumor was benign.

Then, for the world’s 29th-ranked golfer who makes his living with much help from his midsection, it really got hard.

The pain and uncertainty stood in steep contrast to Friday’s blooming dogwoods and chirping mockingbirds.

Back then, it took him two weeks to walk again.

“It’s a little bit degrading when you have other people washing you morning and night,” he said.

Four months later, he calmly strolled Augusta National with five birdies Friday to finish with an eight-under 136 and a one-stroke lead.

“Once I kind of worked my way through all the morphine and stuff they had me on, it seemed to come back fairly quickly,” Immelman said of his recovery after surgery.

When he finally started swinging a club again in January, it felt like he was holding a foreign object.

“I came out and hit a few chips and putts and came home and said to my wife, ‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ because I was skulling them and duffing them,” he said.

Four months later, he smoothly birdied the final two holes with 15- and 10-foot putts that brought a roar from the crowd but only a calm clenched fist from him.

“The first few weeks out on tour, every tweak and every ache, my mind was wondering,” he said. “But at this point, not at all, I feel normal.”

Back then, he took calls from several concerned players, rivals who were suddenly there for support.

“Nice that with all the competitive spirit that we have . . . the guys still took the time to give me a call,” he said.

Four months later, all those guys have seen the scar, as Immelman is unafraid to pull up his shirt for anyone.

“Yeah,” he said. “Public indecency.”

He didn’t actually show the scar to the sportswriters, but it apparently covers a path on his back that approximates a dogleg right.

That fits his career, which has not only included the tumor, but an unrelated stomach parasite that afflicted him in last year’s Masters, causing him to lose 20 pounds.

But that didn’t cause him to withdraw, as he hung in to make the cut and finish tied for 55th, better than only three other golfers.

From almost-worst-to-first?

With rain coming, with Phil Mickelson only three strokes behind after two rounds, with Tiger Woods finishing with an amazing par save to keep him at seven behind, Immelman doesn’t have many believers.

Said Mickelson: “There’s a long ways to go.”

Said Woods: “I’m seven back . . . you can make that up.”

Immelman sees them and hears them and doesn’t mind.

Pressure? This? Now?

“This year is special,” Immelman said.

He does have one supporter, Friday’s leader connected to the guy in last place, Immelman backed by countryman Gary Player.

Long ago, Player posed with a young Immelman for a photo. In the picture, the kid was missing a front tooth. Player has stood beside him as his game has gained teeth, and is convinced he can be the next great South African champion.

“He has as fine a swing as anyone playing golf today,” Player said. “He’s the closest to Ben Hogan that I’ve seen.”

For now, though, the 28-year-old is thrilled just being Trevor Immelman.

“I realize that it can get taken away from you real fast,” he said. “I felt like I’ve been loaned a talent.”

If that was the case, then Friday represented a nice payment.

“The best players in the world get nervous and they feel pressure,” he said, grinning. “I guess it’s just who can disguise it the best and who can handle it the best.”

So, do you want to see his scar?

To be honest, through two smooth days and 136 calm strokes across the most unsettling golf course in the land, I think we’ve already seen it.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.

To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.