PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — If you had a goal since you were in kindergarten and knew you had to pause in pursuit of it for 4 ¹/₂ years, could you do it? 

Would you have the perseverance? 

Would you have the patience? 

Would your passion be powerful enough to carry you through to the other side — even when there were no guarantees once you got there? 

This is Joseph Bramlett’s story, and the answers to the above questions were a resounding yes, yes and yes. 

The Players Championship is very much defined by its star power, boasting the strongest field in golf. 

Bramlett, one of 15 first-timers playing the PGA Tour’s flagship event and ranked 157th in the world, is a mere footnote by comparison to the likes of No. 1-ranked Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa, Dustin Johnson, defending champion Justin Thomas and many others. 

That doesn’t, however, make his story any less inspiring. 

The 33-year-old suffered such a complicated back injury in 2013 that he went without playing golf for 4 ¹/₂ years, visiting 15 spinal surgeons and nine physical therapists before finally returning to golf. 

Merely qualifying for the field this week was a remarkable achievement for Bramlett, who never got to tee it up for his opening round Thursday because of the series of weather delays and will begin his tournament Friday. 

“This has been my dream since I was 5 years old,’’ Bramlett told The Post. “I was the kid walking into kindergarten telling the teacher I was going to play on the PGA Tour one day. Kindergartners don’t even know what golf is, let alone the PGA Tour. 

“This has always been my calling.’’ 

That “calling’’ was challenged significantly when Bramlett — who qualified for the U.S. Amateur as a 14-year-old in 2002 and played his college golf at Stanford, where he won a national championship — hurt his back while hitting balls on the practice range before a 2013 Korn Ferry Tour event in Utah. 

“I was hitting a few lob wedges, and after one swing in particular my body just went on fire and I fell to the ground,’’ he recalled. 

It was then when Bramlett began to see spinal surgeon after spinal surgeon, all telling him if he had surgery he’d never be able to play competitive golf again because it would compromise his range of motion. 

“The one fortunate thing is that I’m very stubborn and I never considered doing anything else,’’ Bramlett said. “It was just a matter of trying to figure out how to get back.’’ 

It was a long, arduous road, but he got back. 

In 2018, 4 ¹/₂ years after the injury, Bramlett returned to competitive golf. He won the Korn Ferry Championship in 2020 and earned his PGA Tour card back. 

On Wednesday, he was sitting in a chair on the manicured lawn that sits between the grand TPC Sawgrass clubhouse and the 18th green taking it all in. 

“Before my injury, we used to play a Korn Ferry Tour event on the other course here [the Valley Course], and I always looked over at this one [the Stadium Course] and there was a little inkling in the back of my head thinking, ‘We’re on the wrong golf course,’ ’’ Bramlett said. “It feels very fulfilling and exciting to be on the right golf course this time.’’ 

During the period without golf, one of the biggest challenges for Bramlett was the mental side of it all as he watched the likes of Rickie Fowler and Jamie Lovemark, players he competed against in college, move on to PGA Tour careers. 

“You’re sitting at home watching other people do what you want to do, and that was tough,’’ he said. “I went through a bit of an identity thing trying to figure out who I was, because golf was always a big piece of that. I was trying to get my own career going on that path and it just got stalled. 

“I’ve always believed I’d be here, but it’s not like I’ve really made it just by getting here, either. But it feels really, really good to be there and I’m soaking it in.’’ 

So, too, is Cody Fowler, Bramlett’s trainer, whom he met and bonded with after moving around the country in search of the right person. 

“When I first met him, I was inspired by his perseverance,’’ Fowler told The Post. 

Asked, if he’d been in Bramlett’s position as he was pursuing his dream, if he could have stuck it out after being derailed for so long, Fowler said, “At his age when that was happening, I don’t know if I would have lasted. At that young of an age, I probably would have ended up taking another path and trying to start a life for myself another way. “That’s the most powerful part about his perseverance.’’