![]() ![]() While not a PGA Tour regular, he has played in four tour stops this year and has made the cut in all four, including the Memorial, where he shot a disappointing final-round 82 the day before he had to go through the grueling sectional.Ĭompton had his first transplant at age 12 after being diagnosed with viral cardiomyopathy, an enlargement of the heart muscle that restricts blood flow. I didn’t have (playing) status anywhere.”īut with moral support from his family, particularly his father, Peter, Compton not only returned to playing, but did so quickly and with a vengeance. “When I was laying in ICU after my last transplant, I pretty much had come to grips that I wasn’t ever going to play golf again,” Compton said. Open was the furthest thing from his mind. It’s a far cry from where he was in May 2008, confined to a hospital bed, wondering what his latest chance at life would bring. In addition to his medical history, the resident of Coral Gables, Fla., had to play a 36-hole sectional qualifier and had to endure a three-hole playoff to earn his spot. But it never has had a story like the one belonging to Erik Compton, a man who has had three hearts.īelieved to be the first active professional athlete who has had a heart transplant, the 30-year-old Compton has had two, the most recent just two years ago after suffering a massive heart attack seven months earlier.Ĭompton will be part of the 156-player field at Pebble Beach this week as perhaps the most miraculous U.S. Open has always been an event that delivers poignant, heart-rending success stories. ![]() "I’m not just the guy with two heart transplants," an emotional Compton said about the storybook ending to his fantastic week.The U.S. This is just a career-opening thing for me to be able to put myself on the map. "Now you just told me I got into the Masters. "I was playing for second I think we all were playing for second," he told NBC Sunday night after posting a final-round 72 and finishing as only one of three players with week-long totals in the red. "I think it teeters on unplayable," Matt Kuchar complained after carding a third-round 1-over 71.īut Compton was not about to let some fiery, turtlebacked greens beat him, and he went back out Sunday and not only tied Fowler for Phil Mickelson’s traditional runner-up spot, he played himself into a certain little tournament in Augusta in April. Putting things in perspective may help me," he said on Saturday, as players all around him were whining about the conditions. a lot more adrenaline pressure situations than hitting a tee shot on 18. Open, it's a dream come true," Compton told reporters on Saturday after matching Rickie Fowler’s low round of the day, a 3-under 67 on a course the USGA set up to be so demanding that players were calling it borderline unfair.Ĭompton has battled his way out of far worse predicaments than slick, domed greens that dared golfers to go flag-hunting. Pinehurst was his second major championship he missed the cut at Pebble Beach in 2010. That Compton, making his 100th PGA Tour start, was even playing at Pinehurst was something of a miracle, given that he almost died in 2007 when the first of his two transplanted hearts started to fail. ![]() Indeed, Kaymer’s stellar 5-under 65 start and refusal to take his foot off his competitors’ necks all week drew nearly infinite comparisons from broadcasters to Woods, who remains sidelined for the indefinite future. No, Tiger Woods was somewhere other than Pinehurst last week and his absence from his second straight major as he continues to recover from back surgery may have sucked the excitement out of the proceedings, but Erik Compton put the heart into it.Ĭompton did not win his second start at his national championship that honor went to wire-to-wire winner Martin Kaymer, who simply dominated the course and the field the way the Missing One has done so many times over his career. The grandstand rose as one and thunderously roared as the man in red and black drained his final putt for par and a 1-under finish in the U.S. ![]()
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