Is it possible that when you give up the PGA Tour chase it’s not necessarily because your heart isn’t in it anymore?

Could it be more that it’s because your mind and your soul have fallen in synch and propelled you in a different direction with a greater purpose?

You’re not buying it? You are welcome to your skepticism, but you likely haven’t met Michael Sims, who woke up one morning eight years ago after having fallen short at the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament and told himself, “I don’t want to do this.”

He lets that just hang there, quietly, then adds, “Every other time (after missing at Q School), I had said, ‘OK, I’ve got work to do’ and I got right back into it.”

In 2013, though, at the age of 34, the brilliantly talented Bermudian who brought his game to the University of Rhode Island (1998-2001) and seemed to pour a proper foundation for the professional game had had it.

We know, you’ve seen this movie before, but to know Sims – to really know him – is to know his story is different. Michael Sims was not ending his dream. Michael Sims was starting his life.

What was he going to do? Anything his heart led him to, and everything his soul craved. “I just realized there was a whole lot more to this (life),” he said. So, he returned for a few years to his beloved Bermuda where he painted houses, re-surfaced tennis courts, and re-connected to Bermy and all its charm.

“Now that is Simsy," said Jim Salinetti, laughing. A URI teammate of Sims’, Salinetti is the esteemed head professional at Winchester CC and a three-time Massachusetts Amateur champion. He’s also entrenched in a camp of people “who feel lucky to be one of Michael’s friends.”

Salinetti always admired this about his friend: “Simsy didn’t do things that people told him needed to do, he did things that were best for him. And walking away was best for him.”

While Sims will return to competitive golf for this week’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship, that is a byproduct of taking on good friend Lucas Glover’s challenge. “I’ll play if you play,” said Glover, and Sims flew home to win the local qualifier.

No, the essence of Sims is the odyssey he’s led since walking away; it has been vintage Sims, free-spirited, and deep-thinking stuff. “The most genuine person I’ve ever met,” said Salinetti.

He worked on a farm. He made furniture. He lived in Vermont. He lived in Oregon. But the most intriguing thing of all – he remained in love with golf.

Not like those earlier golf-loving days when “he hit his driver better and longer than us, he hit his irons better than us, and he was just better than us,” said Salinetti.

No, this love of golf was geared to helping young players perform better, to help them live better.

Michael Sims saw himself as a life coach, yes. But first, he needed to expand his thinking and to know he was going in the right direction. So, he moved to Encinitas, Calif., studied at the YOU Institute, and immersed himself in Haleh Gianni’s “505 Living.”

Sims embraced the power of motivational speaking and spent two-and-a-half years hanging around Goat Hill Park in Oceanside, Calif., soaking in the ambiance of a municipal golf course where the environment is intended “just to have a love of the game,” said Sims.

In Mac Barnhardt, a longtime friend who had been representing some of the most notable PGA Tour golfers for years, Sims found a firm believer in his “Ultimate Life Tool” philosophy. Barnhardt’s new management group, “Rocksport,” includes Sims, who has caddied for younger players such as Wilson Furr and Emilio Gonzalez and for veterans such as Glover, and he’s become friend and mentor to just about every player in the group.

“This is the hardest way to make an easy living,” laughs Sims, who concedes the respect he is afforded comes not from his playing career (a solid, yet unglamorous stretch of 111 Korn Ferry Tour tournaments over six seasons) but from the perspective of a player who always was prepared to play tournament golf and never stopped wondering what he could have done better in golf and in his life.

“Let’s face it, as golfers we’re all mental midgets,” said Sims, “so that part of the game is something that always intrigued me.”

Salinetti is thrilled for his good friend. “He will be a great mentor. He can relate to a 15-year-old kid as easily as he can an 85-year-old man. This is a perfect role for him.”

Glover and Sims were standout collegians and amateurs, especially in 2001 when Glover played on a Walker Cup team and won the Sunnehanna, and Sims won the North and South Amateur and advanced to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur.

Back then, they were golfers. They lived golf.

Now, they are golfers, and they live life, especially those times when Sims has caddied for Glover. If you note that Glover last July won for the first time on the PGA Tour since 2011 and wonder whether that was a coincidence, there would be a slow shake of the head.

Glover doesn’t believe in coincidences. He believes in friends with deep souls.

“I don’t really know where to start,” he texted, when asked about his friendship with Sims.

“There’s not a better person walking the earth, with or without a golf club. He’s one of the few people that the game actually owes something to; most of us owe the game.”