Casey Martin showed up four summers ago with a limp, a cart and a medical journal. He spent three of the years in court, and then the last one in sand traps, and now the ogres of this sport have gotten their wish: he’s probably gone.

Casey Martin’s right tibia is caving in, and that’s why he could barely practice this year, and that’s why he finished 143rd on the minor league money list, and that’s why he’s no longer on the PGA or Buy.com tours, and that’s why he is at home right now deciding whether to ever play a tournament again.

On the one hand, he can still laser a ball down the fairway. But he is also in dire need of a cane and, if this is the end, his was a good ride spoiled. Ask anyone who has seen Casey Martin play this year, and they will say what I say: it is time for Casey Martin to take the pedal off the metal.

It will be hard for him to retire, but it is better to go out this way, better to go out this way than to bleed to death on a 14th fairway somewhere. The PGA Tour -- and players such as Scott Verplank -- thought he’d have an unfair advantage, riding that cart of his, but they forgot to take his atrophying tibia into consideration. Casey Martin will lose his right leg from the hip down, maybe sooner than later, and if those people only knew the half of what he’s been through, they’d quiet down. They’d quiet down.

THE HOPE HE’S HAD

Even though he was born with Klippel-Trenaunays syndrome -- which has left the veins in his right leg abnormally twisted -- he always wanted to be a jock. His first love was basketball, his second love was football, and golf was maybe third or fourth.

He knew he was limited, mobility-wise, and he knew if he broke his leg, it would mean instant amputation. But, as a boy, he still talked his parents into signing the permission slip that allowed him to try out for his seventh-grade hoops team in Eugene, Ore. -- the Quacks.

“I can still see him on the Quacks team," his father, King Martin, says. “Coming down and launching the outside shot. He’d hobble. They’d brace him up, but he’d still hobble. You know, he shouldn’t have done it, but, as a parent, you don’t want to tell someone not to enjoy life. And as a parent, you also don’t want to harm him. It’s the battle we parents fight.

“He just wanted to play everything, and he’d be creative about doing it. I remember driving home from work, and it’s getting dark, and he’s the designated quarterback in football. He’s wearing a plastic wrap over his brace, and he’s got mud from head to toe. And he’s fading back to pass. He probably worked at getting that brace as muddy as the rest of him."

He’d ice his leg when he’d come out of the basketball games or off the football field, but, to him, that was a minor distraction. He just wanted to be "one of the fellas." Always has.

THE PAIN HE’S HAD

Casey and his brother Cameron grew up in adjacent rooms, but the headboards of their beds touched the same wall. That meant that Cameron could hear, through the insulation, his little brother “thrashing and crying" every night, trying to fall asleep with an aching leg.

After a few years, Cameron forgot about all of that. But then he caddied for his brother at a tournament last year in Florida and shared a hotel room with him.

“The thrashing and crying as a kid had given way to the moans of an adult," Cameron says. “Nighttime really sucked for him as a kid, and it’s still that way today. Imagine someone who can never get comfortable. That’s him."

That’s not only him, that’s every night. Every night all 29 years of his life.

At restaurants, he sits down praying no one will kick him in the leg. That’s why he will make certain not to sit too close to you or anyone else. “My shin is incredibly tender," he says. “Just to the point that even a slight tap like that [he knocks wood] will send me through the roof. So if we’re sitting together and you were to straighten your leg and kick me, I mean, I crumble. It just sets you back for a few minutes. I mean, I’ve come to tears numerous times just from people accidentally kicking me or coming up and saying, ‘Hey, great job,’ and patting me on the leg. Ouch."

So, when it comes to golf, and he accidentally steps on a pine cone and twists his leg, that’s triple-ouch.

THE OUTLETS HE’S HAD

He’d come home from tournaments this year, sore and sullen, and he’d need to forget it all. So he’d run over to the University of Oregon football practice, or the Oregon basketball practice. Or he’d go on the internet, to educk.com, and read about the Oregon recruits.

“He knows every coach, every recruit, and every piece of information about that recruit," his brother Cameron says. “Knows more than the coaches."

As a matter of fact, Casey says he will never sign up to play a tournament on the weekend of the Oregon-Oregon State game -- which happens to be this Saturday.

I hate Oregon State," he says. “I guess I actually live vicariously through these teams. Things I can never do, they do."

Even though he went to Stanford, he still roots for the Ducks. He attended the Oregon-Stanford basketball game last season, and happened to be sitting right in front of the Oregon quarterback, Joey Harrington, in the stands. Harrington was wearing an orange wig, and saw his friend Casey, and asked him to wear one himself. Casey did ... for a minute.

The point is, the thought of golf that night was a million miles away.

THE ENDING HE’LL HAVE

He’ll take the winter off, and see in the spring if he still has the itch to play golf. Considering the leg is only getting worse and that it could crack with one misstep and that he could bleed to death if the break happened in some remote spot, I’d hate to see him play. What’s more, his mother thinks because he’s not full-time on either tour right now, he might not have health insurance. So his family just thinks it’s all too scary. “The question is how long the bone hangs in there," Cameron says. “The bone mass has deteriorated, and who knows how long he’ll make that work. It’s the blood. It’s rotting the leg. It’s done so much damage to the bone, the bone will probably stop him. His bone is just brittle."

If he quits now, there’s so much he could do. He was an econ major at Stanford, but that’s not what he has in mind. He’d like to coach; he’d be a brilliant coach. Or some sort of sports administrator. “He’d be a great director of football operations at Oregon," his brother says.

Or, of course, he could come back in the spring and use some sponsor exemptions, and play golf. I doubt he will -- because I think he will enjoy his hiatus too much this winter -- but if he does come back and play, one more time, we’ll all know why.

So he can still be “one of the fellas."

It’s true. He’d give his right leg -- just to be one of the fellas.

Tom Friend is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at tom.friend@espnmag.com.