If Ricky Gregg's 51 years were calculated into a pie chart, the big Sbarro-sized slice to catch your eye first would be dedicated to his comebacks.

Golf comebacks.

Life comebacks.

Gregg was the kind of player who, admittedly, once "lived and died by every shot." Golf meant that much. His peers called him "Dead Solid" because of the top-notch crispness of his iron play. But when he's officially inducted into the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame on Thursday night, he'll be the husband and the father whose perspective on the game has been eroded by time, grateful he's alive to cherish the moment.

"You can be fine one day and winning the city championship and the next day you're lucky to be alive and fighting for your life," Gregg said.

Gregg graduated from Knoxville's now-defunct Young High School in 1974 after twice winning the Prep Masters, which was sponsored by the News Sentinel. The following four years, he cemented himself as one of the area's elite amateurs with that on-the-screws swing. And it was during this time he was named "Dead Solid" by good friend Andy Bean, a former University of Florida golfer and an 11-time winner on the PGA Tour.

Mike Malarkey was Gregg's coach at Tennessee. He said the nickname was appropriate.

"In the golfing world, every now and then you run across a player whose shot just sounds differently coming off the club face," said Malarkey. "And I remember sitting at Fox Den . . . right behind him and listening to him hit those balls. It occurred to me that his shots were so cleanly struck that they were distinctive in sound.

"You don't run across those people very often. But, boy, his iron shots were dead-solidly struck."

Gregg won Knoxville City Amateur titles in 1976 and 1978. He captured two collegiate titles at Tennessee and individually reached the NCAA Championship three times. He was named All-SEC in 1976 and 1977 and played in two U.S. Amateurs in the same years. In 1977, he won local and sectional qualifiers to reach the U.S. Open at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Okla.

Against the world's best, Gregg was a 20-year-old with Dad as a caddy. He was hardly the odds-on favorite and missed the cut. Yet the week was - and still is - a pleasant memory for him.

"It was probably as fun a week as I've ever had," said Gregg. "Just had a ball. With my dad being there to caddy for me, it was really, really special. It was a great time."

Gregg's golf status grew with his five-shot rally on the final day of the State PGA Championship in 1978. A final-round 66 helped him finish as the low amateur and secured the Tennessee Amateur Player of the Year award. Nearly 20 years later, at the 1997 Knoxville City Amateur, Gregg put on an encore. Six shots down heading to the final nine holes, he ultimately lifted the trophy for a third time.

His father and grandfather witnessed the miracle. The next day, they were praying for one.

Gregg was hospitalized with a spleen aneurysm.

"The good Lord had me in the right place," he said. "The doctor said if I hadn't been in the emergency room getting checked out that I would have bled to death in minutes - that if I had been in the parking lot of UT Hospital, I wouldn't have made it.

"It changed the way I looked at a lot of things. You get your priorities in line. I realized that I used to , especially when I played professionally, live and die by every shot. I was pretty hard on myself. I realized real quick that a 3-foot par putt wasn't anywhere near as important as I thought it was."

Gregg won approximately 50 amateur championships. He calls himself a "corporate golfer" nowadays. As the director of national accounts for Eljer Plumbing, Gregg plays once or twice per week with businessmen who maybe aren't aware of his golfing alias. And when the low rounds happen, those playing partners often suggest a crack at the Champions Tour.

Gregg tried the mini tours for six years after college and once was a stroke short of making it past the PGA Tour qualifying school. But another shot at professional golf? That's one comeback Gregg won't entertain.

"My answer to them is, 'Look, I can still shoot a pretty good round every now and then,' " said Gregg. " 'But the guys I'd be playing with - the Freddy Coupleses, the Jeff Slumans, the Joey Sindelars, the Jay Haases - that's who I competed with 30 years ago.

"Those guys were better than I was then. I've been working for 30 years, and they've been playing golf every day. So if I couldn't beat them then, I think it would be a little far-fetched to think I could take a 30-year break and go out and compete with those guys now.' "

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.