Open.Compton first played Sea Island when he competed in the SEC Championship while at Georgia in 2001. Maybe when you’re dead it is, but the process of a ‘widow maker’ is pretty painful.”Ī lot more painful than anything that will happen today, win or lose, at the U.S.

“I was basically minutes away from dying (in 2007),” he said earlier. Just not as difficult as staying alive was just to be here. It was a difficult layout for Erik Compton, too. Open coming off the 3-under yesterday on a layout every player insisted was among the most difficult they had ever faced. He enters today’s final round of the U.S. This year, he has a pair of top-10 finishes to his credit. He replied, “Well, I’ve had two heart transplants.” Then he laughed, which is part of what keeps him going through both his medical travails and an up-and-down career that saw him finally get his PGA Tour card in 2012 only to suffer through a disappointing year that left him 137th in FedEx Cup points and 165th on the money list, costing him his dream.Ĭompton had the heart to fight on though, winning his PGA card back at Q-School that fall. 2 this week.Īfter mentioning this tendency this week he was asked by an unknowing inquisitor why that might be. He is as obsessive about winning as anyone on tour, but he usually keeps his practice rounds to nine holes to maintain his stamina and admits late in events he tends to fade, especially in the kind of heat that is blistering Pinehurst No. To do that on such a stress-producing stage Compton ingests 10 pills each morning, three at dinner and 10 more before going to bed, many designed to prevent his body from rejecting the third heart he’s known in 34 years. The operation took 13 hours because doctors feared Compton’s body might reject the new heart, but within two months he was again playing golf, something he continued to do yesterday on the game’s biggest stage. No need to explain that term further.įortunately, Compton survived and eight months later, on May 20, 2008, he received the heart of a former University of Dayton volleyball player named Isaac Klosterman who died when his motorcycle was rear-ended by a hit-and-run driver. He was, he later learned, in the midst of what is called a “widow maker” heart attack. His heart was pumping at less than 20 percent and he’d learned enough about such things to realize he was very likely on the back nine of life, so he began calling family and friends to hear their voices one last time. While driving his car the next day, he suddenly realized his heart was shutting down and steered himself to a hospital, where he informed an attendant he was a heart transplant recipient having a heart attack. Then, in October 2008, his second heart gave out.Ĭompton had just missed the cut at the Boise Open and flew home to Miami feeling poorly. That heart beat strong enough for him to become a top collegiate golfer at the University of Georgia and play for 10 years on the Nationwide Tour and Web.com Tour, but the PGA Tour proved elusive. Three years earlier he’d been diagnosed with viral cardiomyopathy, an affliction which inhibits the heart’s ability to work efficiently, yet after receiving his new heart Compton took up golf as an antidote to the difficulties he faced. “It” is competing at the highest level of golf, which he did yesterday when he shot a remarkable 3-under 67 to tie Rickie Fowler for the best round of the day and move into a two-way tie for second place, 5 shots behind the streaking Kaymer, who is 8-under for the tournament but still within striking distance.Ĭertainly, catching Kaymer is an uphill climb, but Compton knows all about that, having had his first heart transplant in 1992 at the age of 12. As a matter of fact he’s had three hearts, and he’s still doing it. Open, nobody need wonder if Erik Compton has the heart to do it. Regardless of whether he catches Martin Kaymer today or not to win the U.S.

Erik compton heart transplant