HOLLYWOOD LOVES A GOOD sports comeback. There are already discussions about who will play Lance Armstrong on the big screen. But with no life-threatening illnesses, no legal troubles or noble sacrifices, Will MacKenzie's return to golf doesn't exactly lend itself to dramatic treatment. Just an unemployed ski bum living with his parents, pondering his next move.

It was a Sunday afternoon in June 1999 and MacKenzie was watching with his father as Payne Stewart emerged from a four-man tie with Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, and Vijay Singh to win the U.S. Open at North Carolina's Pinehurst Golf Club. MacKenzie had played the course as a young star, and Stewart had always been his favorite player. "It was epic, and it was in N.C., and the stars aligned," MacKenzie says. "That U.S. Open is the only reason I'm playing golf now. I realized that I was really good at a lot of things, and I wanted to be great at something."

Call it dumb luck or divine intervention, but that afternoon changed the course of his life. "It's kinda scary now that I think about it," MacKenzie admits. He convinced his parents to help fund his venture, called in favors from old golf coaches and local pros, and was soon spending 12 hours a day working on his game. By the following year he was competing on the mini-tours—golf's version of the minors—scraping together entry fees and, yes, sleeping in a van.

He rose quickly, playing his way onto the Canadian Tour and then earning player-of-the-year honors on the NGA Hooters Pro Golf Tour in 2004, the last stop before the PGA. Later that year, MacKenzie earned his Tour card at Q school, the annual ten-round marathon where more than 1,000 players compete for just 30 PGA spots. To keep it, however, he needed to finish the next season with a tournament win or in the top 125 on the money list. He didn't come close. But unlike most pros, who can spend several years trying to earn a spot back on the Tour, MacKenzie bounced back immediately and survived his second-straight Q school in a row. "It's a tremendous feat," says Olin Browne, a 15-year pro who's been to Q school 12 times and missed his card by one stroke on three separate occasions. "It's so stressful, I can't even watch it on TV. But Will just has a different air about him."

That grace under pressure is evident during MacKenzie's opening round in New Orleans, in which he overcomes three bogeys and one triple bogey with six birdies to finish at even par. It's typical MacKenzie: all over the place, but it works out. The next day I watch him rebound with a more consistent three-under 69, good enough to make the cut by two strokes. He'll go on to finish the tournament in a tie for 28th and net $37,210—middle-of-the-pack respectability that should keep him comfortably in the PGA ranks. His peers—and the media—would welcome that. "I've never heard anyone say anything even close to bad about him," says Charley Hoffman, a PGA pro from San Diego who's bonded with MacKenzie over their love for the ocean. "He's all business on the course, but in the clubhouse he's cracking jokes, having fun with everyone. He's just his own breed, and people respond to that."

It was in Hawaii this year that MacKenzie's legend started to take shape, beginning with his breakdancing performance at a New Year's Eve party that kicked off the Mercedes-Benz Championship. "Once the spirit gets in me," he says, "I have to start." And when an interviewer for the Golf Channel asked if he was still sleeping in his van, MacKenzie gushed that he was staying at the Ritz-Carlton, offering up his room number as proof. He had to unplug his phone for the rest of the tournament so he could sleep.