Jon Mills remembers when those twitchy pangs in his stomach were a good thing. They usually came just before his tee time and were an indication that he was excited to hit that first shot and get the day under

There were a lot of great days. First as an amateur, winning the Ontario junior title in 1996 and then the provincial amateur in 2001. They continued while at Kent State and while representing Canada in international play.

As a pro, Mills had more success, winning the then-Canadian Tour’s Order of Merit in 2003, and advancing to the Web.Com Tour where he logged a couple of victories. No one was surprised when he qualified for the PGA Tour, both in 2006 and ’08.

But while his game seemed to be rising, so was that feeling in the pit of his stomach. That anxious feeling he experienced on the first tee started to last longer and grow stronger, to the point where it not only lasted until the 18th green but overwhelmed him on nearly every swing.

“At first it was a nervous tension,” admitted Mills. “But it grew more and more to the point where I couldn’t control it.”

The anxiety was seen most often in his tee shots. He would stand over the ball, look down at that Titleist logo and have absolutely no idea where it was going to go or how he should even hit it. Every time he put the tee in the ground, he’d experience a full-on panic attack.

The result was the steady downfall of one of Canada’s most promising players. He fell from the PGA Tour, back to the Web.com Tour and then down to the Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada. Last year, he was playing events on the Mandarin Tour, a small circuit playing mostly in the Great Toronto Area.

But now, after a lot of hard work on dealing with the anxiety, Mills is coming back. And he’s doing it in an innovative if not necessarily unique way – he’s looking to crowd funding to give him some backing.

He started a GoFundMe page and hopes to raise $50,000 that will allow him to play next season. He’ll start that with a trip to Web.Com Tour qualifying school and, if necessary, on to the same tournament for the Canadian circuit he once dominated. He simply wants to show that he can play again.

Crowd funding has become an option – a last one, possibly – for players looking to finance the expensive ordeal of playing professional golf. Last year, another once-promising golfer, Andrew Parr, raised more than $90,000 for his campaign on the links.

With corporate sponsorship not what it once was, the GoFundMe option was the best path for Mills, a golfer with 70 career starts on the PGA Tour.

To entice donations, he’s has loaded up his donation page with draw prizes ranging from rounds at local Ontario golf courses to signed memorabilia and equipment from PGA Tour players Graham DeLaet and David Hearn, who were only too happy to pitch in and help one of their peers.

The 37-year-old Mills wouldn’t be going to these lengths if he didn’t feel his game was tournament-ready. He went through a number of mental coaches before finding a fit with Paul Dewland, who has finally calmed his mind so he can regain his form.

“When I don’t feel the anxiety,” Mills said of the reason for his comeback, “I play great golf.”

Still, the Oshawa, Ont., product thought long and hard about whether he wanted to try again.

“The last couple of years I’ve thought of what I should do,” he admitted. “Should I stay in golf or get another career?

“I’m not getting any younger, but I still have exemptions (into the second stage of Web.com Tour qualifying) so I wanted to make use of those while I can. I didn’t want to look back and have regrets. Of course, if I hadn’t seen any improvement the last year, I probably wouldn’t be doing this.”

If he can get his game back to where it was a decade ago, Mills could easily make a living as a tournament professional. All he’s looking for now is the chance to do just that, one donation at a time.