It's not easy being Fred

"I know what people are saying," says Couples. " 'Wow, the guy's getting divorced again?' " He is sitting at the dining table of the Indian Wells condominium of Tony Porcello, an 84-year-old jeweler who was close to Couples' parents and has become a trusted friend. As Porcello nods, Couples lets out his version of a saga that he has largely kept bottled up.

"I mean, she's got two kids, she's sick, I went with another woman for a year -- I'm the bad guy. I don't think I am, but I can be a jerk, and I wouldn't sit here and not admit all the mistakes I make. But going back 10 years, I remember Thais saying after we'd found out about the cancer, 'You don't want to be with me. You don't even know me.' And not long ago she asked me, 'Did you do it because of all the stuff that happened to you?' [Couples' mother, Violet, died of cancer on Mother's Day in 1994, and his father, Tom, died of leukemia late in 1997.] I said, 'No, I did it to help you, and I fell in love with you.' But honestly, I still don't know the answer to that question. I guess it happened fast, she was fighting for her life, and I got caught up in that. Because we really didn't know each other. When she started feeling better, my playing golf got to be a problem, and my being gone was a problem, and now you look at where we're at."

His gaze steady, he pauses, giving his emotions time to settle.

"I hope she ends up my best friend," he says. "I really care about her kids -- I thought eight or nine months sitting with GiGi and Oliver would be the greatest thing. And I'm glad she's doing really well with her health. But it's over. It's too combative. I ask myself, What is my purpose here? And the answer is, there isn't one. I tried very hard. I'm exhausted. I'm not smart enough to figure it out. But I think it comes down to: Life is too short to be unhappy."

It's a realization, according to John Bracken, a close friend since childhood, that has been a long time coming.

"Fred did something he's not used to doing, which was going back and trying to make it work with Thais, basically taking last year off to work on his personal life," says Bracken. "But he realized that it's just not going to work, and that he has to move on. It shows growth because he faced a difficult situation and found out what he really wanted, and because for the first time in a while he didn't replace one woman with another. Fred has always been pretty shy, and he doesn't really like being alone, and in the past, when women have pursued him because of who he is, sometimes he's gone along and gotten into bad relationships and then just stuffed his feelings and not talked to anyone and been unhappy. I think he's realized that way hasn't worked very well, and he's decided to take some control and really be himself. It's a new chapter in his life."

BATTLING THE BACK

And so golf -- so long a source of such obvious ambivalence for Couples that there is little argument he underachieved even as he won 15 official tournaments including the 1992 Masters -- has become a refuge, although one he can use only sparingly. His back, which he injured on the practice range at Doral in 1994, is as mysterious as it is precarious. It's another big reason he played only six official rounds in 2007, four of them at Augusta, where he has never missed the cut in 23 appearances. The back is the great "What if. . . ?" of Couples' career. It struck in his prime, severely limited the number of tournaments he can play, and essentially hasn't allowed him to practice putting -- long his biggest weakness -- for 10 years. It has also taken a huge toll mentally.

"When my back is thriving," says Couples, again dipping into his personal thesaurus, "I just get really edgy. Every move you make, it's like a toothache. By the end of the day I'm physically spent, and a lot of nights by 7 o'clock I'm in bed. So when I play in a tournament, that tension builds up. The problem is that I want to play better, but I can't try any harder. Pushing it a little, like hitting 15 more balls, that's the biggest thing I can't do. Because I can't play many tournaments, when I do play, I feel like it has to happen, and that just makes me more tense. Everything has to work, and usually it doesn't."

Joe LaCava, Couples' caddie since 1990, believes tension in the player's personal life has had a physical effect. "I can tell if he's hurting just by looking at his eyes," says LaCava. "If they're wide open, he's OK, but if they're narrow, it's because his back is killing him and he didn't sleep, or he's got a migraine."

After years of treatment with back guru Tom Boers, Couples last year began working with John Patterson, a rehabilitation specialist whose clients include the NBA's Tracy McGrady and major-league pitcher John Smoltz. Patterson's approach has worked well. Since moving to the desert, Couples has practiced and played more frequently, including regular visits to work with Butch Harmon.

"The issue with Fred has always been motivation," says Harmon, who guided Couples to his last official victory, the 2003 Shell Houston Open. "When his back's good, he's still exceptional physically, still drives the ball very well and very long. He struggles with his nerves on short putts, his chipping is rusty, and he can get negative, but he's so gifted that when he works on the right things he gets results. Obviously he can't work as hard as a lot of guys, but he has to work as hard as he can. He's got some personal baggage right now, but there's no doubt he can still win on the regular tour. I'd like to light a fire under him."