For anyone who's ever played golf, Augusta is considered the ultimate destination. For Tim Simpson, however, Augusta epitomizes a beginning.

It was here nine months ago where Simpson's golf career - one already worthy of induction into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame tonight - was given new life. Not on the storied grounds of Augusta National Golf Club but in an operating room at the Medical College of Georgia.

"As far as I'm concerned, they've given me a new lease on life," said the 49-year-old Simpson of the MCG doctors who performed his brain surgery to relieve his career debilitating hand tremors last March. "I feel like God has given me a second chance and I want to make the most of it."

The backstory leading up to Simpson's second chance is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Talking about it - as he will in his induction speech tonight at the GGHF banquet - almost always chokes him up.

"When it comes to talking about your career being taken away from you, I have a hard time," Simpson said as he drove to Augusta on Friday from his home at Lake Oconee in Greensboro, Ga.

Simpson was fast-tracked to greatness in golf. The Atlanta native was an All-American at Georgia before becoming one of the youngest PGA Tour card holders at age 21. He won his first tournament, the Southern Open, in 1985 at age 29. He won twice in 1989 and finished sixth on the money list. He defended his Disney title in 1990, finishing again in the top 10 on the money list while leading the tour in top-10 finishes.

He played in six Masters Tournaments,

where he made only one cut in a home-state tournament he put too much pressure on himself to do well in. Simpson, however, had strong chances to win three U.S. Opens. In his prime, the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller and Butch Harmon labeled him one of the best ball strikers on the PGA Tour.

Then in 1991 it all started going downhill. He contracted Lyme disease on a hunting trip after the Masters. Suddenly he was constantly dealing with the lingering illness, muscle stiffness and eventually a tremor in his left hand that ultimately doomed his career.

By 1998, tired of struggling to play on medications, he retired.

"The hardest thing I've ever done in my life was retire, because to me it was quitting," he said. "It just drove me crazy."

A natural fighter, however, it also drove him to go on with his life while searching for something that could cure the shaking in his left hand known as atypical benign essential tremor. It only afflicted him when he gripped a golf club.

Hope came in the form of three doctors at MCG - Dr. Kapil Sethi, Joseph Smith and Patrick Jenkins. If Simpson is filling out a dream foursome, these men are in it.

After exhausting all other options, the treatment that held the most promise was a surgical procedure called DPS - deep brain stimulation. A simple way to explain it is a pacemaker-like device that generates stimulation to the portion of the brain that controls the tremors. It's been a promising breakthrough in treatment for Parkinson's Disease.

"The prospect of brain surgery scared the hell out of me," Simpson said.

Even so, with 16 months left before he was eligible to join the Champions Tour, Simpson opted to try it. With a golf club in the operating room to help him prompt a tremor, his surgical team hooked him up. It took holding a cane to bring on the tremors, and then the stimulator was turned on. Simpson felt electricity fire down his legs and arms and his hand holding the cane instantly stopped.

"That's when all hell broke loose in the operating room," Simpson said. "They knew they'd hit a grand slam."

Simpson was back on the course in three days. With only a couple of adjustments to the device implanted in his chest and running to his brain, his life and career path are essentially back to normal. He hopes his experience can inspire others.

"If I'm able to come back and play great," he said, "my story can give hope and determination for men and women fighting other things."

He'll soon have the perfect outlet to spread that message. Simpson will turn 50 on May 6. The next week he'll make his Champions Tour debut in Destin, Fla.

"I'm counting down the days and working hard," he said.

Even after seven years mostly out of competition - a time out that included other surgeries for staph infection (2000) and spinal fusion (2001) - friends such as Miller are predicting greatness from a player who might instantly be the longest hitter on the senior circuit.

He is inspired by predecessors who have had huge second-chance careers such as Allen Doyle and Dana Quigley - especially because neither of those players had his professional background.

"I think it's going to be a miraculous comeback story," he said. "It all hinges on just getting my confidence back. I think my future is limitless out there."

At this stage of his new life, just giving it his best shot on the Champions Tour would be enough for him.

"It'll satisfy me," he said. "I got over the other stuff years ago. I can't be bitter about the millions of dollars or records I lost out on. God just had a different plan for me."

In the meantime, the hardest thing facing Simpson is tonight's induction banquet at the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame - where he'll be honored along with LPGA star Rosie Jones and amateur golfers George Hamer Jr. and Martha Wilkinson Kirouac.

"For a guy called intimidating and imposing his whole career, I cry at a Jim Carey movie," Simpson said of the likelihood he'll get emotional.

When he was inducted in the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in Macon in 2004, he spent more than two months working on a speech and rehearsing it. Every time he got to the part about thanking his parents, he broke down. Ultimately, he had to cut them out to get through it.

For his second induction ceremony and the first after the surgery, Simpson will have to put his mother and father back in and let the tears flow. And with two of his heroes - Dr. Sethi and Dr. Jenkins - hoping to attend, the honor and location of the GGHF will be too much to have him hold back.

"It will make it that much more special," he said of returning to Augusta as a Hall of Famer in the place his golfing life started anew nine months ago.

Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.

If you go

What: Georgia Golf Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
Who: George Hamer, Rosie Jones, Martha Kirouac and Tim Simpson are this year's honorees
Where: Radisson Riverfront Hotel Augusta
When: Today with reception at 6:30 p.m. and dinner at 7:15
Tickets: The event is sold out. For more information, call (706) 724-4443 or go to www.gghf.org.