JOHN GASTALDO / Union-Tribune Two hip replacement surgeries haven't stopped golf instructor Greg Casagranda, who has won three of what he consideres the four teaching pro "majors" in the region in 2008.

When Casagranda climbed stairs, he squeaked. When he loaded up on his right side during his golf swing, he squeaked. Pretty much doing anything but walking on flat ground made him squeak.

Casagranda likened the sound to the annoying noise a smoke detector makes when it needs a new battery.

On walks with his wife, Susan, birds talked back to him.

“It was like walking with Snow White,” Susan recalled with a laugh.

It all got rather serious, though, when Greg Casagranda read up on the subject and discovered the squeaking might be a precursor to something ugly: The ceramic ball in his artificial hip could explode.

“That made me pretty nervous,” Casagranda said.

Casagranda was only 44 at the time. He had been a top-level competitor among his peers who are PGA teaching professionals. He once made a bid to play on the PGA Tour.

At the time, Casagranda was wondering if he'd ever be able to play well, and without pain, again. As he taught others golf for hours at a time at the Hodges Learning Center in Escondido, he couldn't even bend over to tee up a ball for his students.

It is remarkable to consider now, given the year Casagranda is having. He had a second surgery on the hip 13 months ago, and the Tin Man became an Iron Man.

Casagranda, 46, has won three of what he considers the four teaching pro “majors” in the region in 2008: the SCPGA Section Players Championship, the San Diego Chapter Stroke Play, and the Chapter Match Play. The victories earned him the honor last month of Chapter Player of the Year. Oceanside's Fred Wood was named the Senior Player of the Year.

“What he's accomplished with the setbacks he's had, he's my hero,” said Susan Casagranda, the president of Torrey Pines Club Corp., which operates the pro shop at Torrey Pines.

In an odd way, Greg Casagranda believes that the hip troubles might have ultimately helped his game by giving him perspective.

He recalled that in his first major event back, last May's Players Championship at Crystalaire in the Antelope Valley, he hit two balls out of bounds on the first hole and made an 8. He fought back, though, to shoot 70 that day and ultimately won by a shot.

“When you go through an injury, you're just happy to be out there, having a chance to compete,” Casagranda said. “Things didn't upset me like they did in the past. I don't know that I could have come back from that 8 before. But maybe it relaxed me. I was just thinking, 'I'm going to do the best I can.' ”

The positive vibe would serve him well again in the Chapter Stroke Play Championship at Santaluz, when Casagranda started out with a lost ball, made a double bogey, and still shot 67 en route to a victory.

In a San Diego Chapter packed with quality players, Casagranda has often played in the top tier. Even with his hip badly aching last year, he finished second in the Chapter points race to Stadium Golf's Justin Hicks.

But Casagranda also knew he couldn't go on much longer playing on one leg. It took him some time to convince his doctors that there was something wrong with his first artificial hip. When they finally looked at it seriously, they discovered why he squeaked: Under pressure, the ceramic ball was popping out of the ceramic socket and rubbing against the metal housing. It also was pushing into muscle, causing him the pain.

If the ball had disintegrated, doctors would have had to pick out pieces as if they were shrapnel.

“Basically, it kept dislocating,” Casagranda said. “The longer it went on, the more pain I was in.”

In October 2007, nearly two years after the first surgery, Casagranda underwent the second procedure. Doctors cut through the same scar and muscle tissue. They had to replace the rod in the middle of Casagranda's femur. There wasn't enough bone in his pelvis to replace the housing, so they lined the socket with rubber.

Recovery from the first surgery lasted about six weeks, Casagranda said. The second recovery was three months.

“For a long time, I couldn't lay on my side and lift my leg,” Casagranda said.

At least it gave him time to focus on his short game, which he honed nicely. When Casagranda got back to the range last winter and was pain-free, he attacked working on his full swing again.

“Greg is a grinder,” Susan Casagranda said. “He just really works on his game.”

As a teacher, Casagranda is a guy most students can relate to. Growing up in Montana, he didn't start playing until he was 23. He won the prestigious Arizona Open in 2002, but failed twice while trying to get through PGA Tour Qualifying School in '02 and '03.

He knows golf doesn't come easy.

“I've come to have a motto that whatever time you put into your game is what you get out of it,” Casagranda said.

He also hopes he can be a role model to others who have suffered through injuries and joint replacements.

“I hope it's encouraging for somebody whose gone through it,” he said, “to see somebody come out on the other side.”

Tod Leonard: (619) 293-1858; tod.leonard@uniontrib.com