Driving home after winning a golf tournament in Fox Chapel nearly 11 years ago, Sam Depe III's life changed course and flipped as violently as his car on Route 28.

Accelerating to get clear of traffic and change lanes, Mr. Depe's BMW veered off the road, severed a utility pole and flipped three times in Millvale. One of his legs was severed in the one-car crash.

Doctors amputated the other after it took paramedics nearly two hours to pry him from the wreckage.

And the bleeding?

Mr. Depe, 49 at the time and a father of two, lost 60 to 70 units of blood on the night of Sept. 22, 1998, and 102 units over the next five days, enough for five people. He went into cardiac arrest twice and lapsed into a coma.

And yet there he was, seven months later, right where he always was on every opening day of the golf season since 1981 at South Hills Country Club -- on the first tee, greeting his members, as though nothing had happened. The promise Mr. Depe made to himself when he was lying in the hospital also turned out to be the first of several goals he would pursue, and ultimately attain, in the months and years after his horrific accident.

Now, more than a decade later, he has reached another goal: He is one of two new owners of Hickory Heights Golf Club in South Fayette, an 18-hole public facility near Bridgeville, not far from where Mr. Depe grew up as the son of a golf professional.

After 28 years as the head professional at South Hills, a club that had embraced him and promised to keep him as its golf pro for as long as he desired, Mr. Depe decided to pursue a lifelong dream. Along with another investor who prefers to remain anonymous, he bought Hickory Heights in the fall for $1.35 million.

"I never lost my dream ... I guess I don't know I'm injured," Mr. Depe said, sitting outside the clubhouse at Hickory Heights, near the same sign that used to hang outside the golf shop at South Hills proclaiming, "Sam Depe III, Head Professional."

"I can do everything I used to do but play golf," Mr. Depe said. "I still live the game and I still love the game. I miss playing with my friends in the evening in the skins game, but that's the only thing I really miss. I still do everything I used to do. I guess I'm not smart enough to know any better."

Mr. Depe has hit balls just once since the accident, and that was in April 1999, seven months after he was injured. He went to the 18th tee at South Hills, accompanied by his physical therapist, former University of Pittsburgh basketball player Joey David, and hit 10 balls from his seat in the golf cart.

Only one made it to the bottom of the hill, a distance of approximately 120 yards. Mr. Depe never tried to hit another ball. On occasion, though, he will pull his wheelchair onto to the putting green and still attempt a few putts.

"I made enough birdies in my life," Mr. Depe said, smiling. "Plus, I haven't made a bogey in 10 years."

It would have been very easy for Mr. Depe to continue with his life at South Hills, just as he did nearly every day since his accident. It would have been perfectly understandable for him to accept the club's gesture to allow him to finish his career as its golf professional, fortunate to be alive and thrilled to have employment.

But that has never been his way.

The desire to own a golf course, to have his son -- Sam Jr., 27 -- work with him and advance through the business, just as the elder Mr. Depe had done with his father, was too strong.

"I could have stayed at South Hills til I retired," Mr. Depe said. "My dad was a golf pro, I'm a golf pro and my son is going to be a golf pro. My lifelong dream is to have my own facility and you try to make it happen. I tried to buy this place for three years, but I never had the right partners and financing was a problem. They were sick of talking to me. Finally I had a partner who made it happen.

"I love South Hills Country Club. They could never treat me any better than they did. But it was like it was a lifelong dream. My son is third generation and to be able to work with him every day is going to be a joy. It's kind of funny, I went to all these other places and I came back to Bridgeville."

One of his first orders of business is to clean up and improve the golf course, hoping to make it more player-friendly.

Hickory Heights, which opened in 1991 as part of a real-estate community, was designed by Michael Hurdzan, a noted Columbus, Ohio-based architect who also did the Olde Stonewall Golf Club, just outside Ellwood City. Hickory Heights, however, was designed on hilly terrain, and golfers are pestered by many holes featuring steep slopes into unplayable areas.

Mr. Depe already has taken out more than a dozen of the steep-faced sand bunkers in the fairway, creating more room for players to hit their tee shots while also eliminating hazards that were a financial nightmare to maintain because hard rain often washed the sand off the slope.

He has removed many of the shrubs and weeds that were allowed to grow to such ridiculous heights that they blocked the view and inhibited shots on holes such as the par-5 seventh and the par-3 14th, two of the better holes on the layout.

He also had more than 3,000 trees removed on the left side of the par-5, dogleg-left 10th, creating more room for players who slice the ball -- the bane of most golfers -- to hit the fairway.

"We just opened everything up," Mr. Depe said, driving around the course in a golf cart. He uses the grip-end of a putter to push on the accelerator and brake, even on a steep slope.

"It was claustrophobic last year. If we fix the bunkers, remove the ones that are not maintainable, clear trees and clear weeds, if we can do that in one year, that's a heck of a project. The course is tough enough. We want it more friendly for the average golfer."

It doesn't bother Mr. Depe that the golf industry has been in a slow decline for the past six or seven years, with the numbers of rounds shrinking and the cost of maintaining a course dramatically rising.

To help stimulate interest in the club, he has refurbished and expanded the dining and bar area and hired Scott Templeton, Mario Lemieux's former personal chef. He plans to remodel the banquet room to include heating and cooling and a deck for outside dining.

"All these country clubs have gone through a vast change in the last eight or 10 years," Mr. Depe said. "Anything you can get at South Hills or Rolling Hills or Valley Brook or other country clubs, you can do here for a fraction of the price. That's why I think we're a niche."

And maybe Sam Depe has found his niche.