Diaz and I share quite a bit in common. We’re about the same age, have roots in the Myrtle Beach area and attended school 60 miles apart—Diaz graduated from the University of South Carolina Aiken, while I graduated from the University of South Carolina.

We also carry the burden of a stutter.

In our first conversation a few days ago, we quickly commiserated over these common afflictions. If you’re unaware, here are the basics: Stuttering is a communication disorder where the flow of speech is broken by either repetitions, prolongations or stoppages. There is no cure, but it can sometimes be curtailed with speech therapy.

We discuss the tendencies in which ours occur — usually in situations where we are nervous or excited — and the letters that most often trip us up: Q, R and C for him; L, S and W for me. We also connected over how we strategically avoid expressions we know will cause us trouble.

“I add words between words to avoid stuttering,” Diaz explains. “For example, if I use a small word before my name, like if I say, ‘I am Roberto’ instead of just ‘Roberto,’ I know that I won’t stutter.”

Doesn’t it seem like such a cruel joke? Here is Diaz, one of the lucky few to call himself a PGA TOUR player, and he sometimes can’t even say his own name. (He typically refers to himself as Bobby anyway to avoid this issue.)

His sister, Isabella, has a similar problem. She struggles with the letter G and, naturally, her husband’s name is Goyo. Talk about the ultimate irony.

“By now, I’ve been stuttering for almost 20 years, so I know which words I’m going to get stuck on,” Diaz says.

Perhaps the most unusual aspect in all this? Diaz is bilingual, yet he only stutters when speaking Spanish, not English.

I debated whether or not to take this story when it was first pitched to me. I’ve lived with a stutter for as long as I can remember and, while it’s a crucial aspect of the person I am, I’ve never tried to draw added attention to it.

But Diaz is open and transparent about his speech difference. If anything, he embraces it with pride when confronted about it.

“They’ve never been in the shoes of somebody speaking in public and not being able to start talking, so they don’t know what it feels like. That’s the reason why I’m pretty open about it. Friends have even nicknamed me after the cartoon character Porky Pig, and I just ride the nickname pretty well. It’s in my email address.”

That’s one of the more important steps a person with a stutter should take, according to Dr. Gerald Maguire, Chair of the Psychiatry and Neuroscience Department at the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine.

He should know. He also stutters.

“I advise people to not hide it and accept stuttering,” Dr. Maguire says. “If you accept it, that’s the first goal to feeling free about it. So many of us, we have so much avoidance around our speech that we don’t speak up. We don’t realize our dreams because of the fear of stuttering.”

Maguire, coincidentally enough, spoke with me on the way home from a public-speaking obligation in Israel as part of his duties as the board chair of the National Stuttering Association. His team will soon begin studies on medications that could treat the impediment.

“Here I was just 10 minutes ago going through security and they’re asking me all these questions about why I’m here,” Maguire said. “I stuttered some and thought, ‘God, they’re going to think I’m (crazy).’ All the time people think we’re nervous, anxious or hiding something.”

“But I always say that just because it may take a little longer to say what you have to say doesn’t mean you can’t communicate well. There’s so much more to communication. Don’t substitute the words you want. Say what you’re going to say. Speak up. It might just take you a little bit longer to say it. Be open about it.”

Diaz is more than transparent, and he isn’t the only athlete doing so. Ron Harper, a five-time NBA champion with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, donates much of his time to the National Stuttering Association. Houston Astros center fielder George Springer is a spokesperson for SAY: The Stuttering Association for the Young.