For just-turned 29-year-old Erik Compton of Miami, it has been a golfing season of a few ups and a lot of downs. At least that”s what it seems like from the perspective of an up-and-coming professional golfer.
Compton received a sponsor”s exemption into the PGA Tour”s Children”s Miracle Classic at Disney World, the final circuit event for 2008. During the second round of play, he busted a 270-yard 3-wood over water, made birdie, and made the cut right on the button. He shot 70-68-72-72 for a 6-under-par 282 and pocketed $10,074 for coming in 60th place. It was his first PGA Tour paycheck since 2005.
In late October, Compton went to Stage 1 of PGA Tour Qualifying. Choosing a site closest to his Miami residence, he went to the qualifier at the ultra-difficult Crandon Park Golf Course in Key Biscayne. Following rounds of 76-77-75, Compton was close to done until a final round of 68, the low round of the qualifier. He made it to Stage 2 right on the cut line, jumping over 33 other golfers in the process.
This past week, Compton was eliminated from Q School when his 6-under-par 282, the same score he shot at Disney World, proved to be one shot too many at the Stage 2 qualifier at the Southern Hills Plantation Golf Club in Brookville, Florida. By failing to get to the third stage next week at PGA West in La Quinta, just outside Palm Springs, Compton will lack exempt status for the 2009 PGA Tour and will only have conditional status on the minor-league Nationwide Tour, the result of his past champion status for winning the 2004 Wichita Open.
Compton has a very solid golfing pedigree. A youthful phenom, Compton was the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) Rolex Player of the Year in 1998. He received a scholarship to play golf at the University of Georgia and was a two-time first-team All-American. He played on America”s 2001 Walker Cup team, the amateur golf equivalent of the Ryder Cup that was founded some 80 years ago by the grandfather of President George Walker Bush. He turned pro in 2001, bounced around on the mini-tours, was the winner of the Order of Merit on the Canadian Tour in 2004, symbolic of that circuit”s top money winner, and won the King Hussan II Trophy tournament in Morocco in 2005.
For a golfer with the pedigree of Compton, it would be reasonable to think that this would be a somewhat depressing Thanksgiving in light of his coming up just short at Q School. However, as easy as it might be to assume that impression, it is far from reality.
In September of 2007, Compton missed the cut at the Nationwide Tour”s Boise Open. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Failing to make it to the weekend at Boise, he flew home to Miami, canceling plans for a fishing vacation that he intended to take in a remote area of Idaho.
A few days later after he touched down in Miami, Compton felt his heart start to fail and he was very aware of his physical condition — Compton had previously had a heart transplant in 1992 when he was a 12-year-old. As a youngster he had been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, an enlarging of the heart muscle. He was on a heart replacement list for three years. Finally an appropriate donor heart was found and the surgery was a success.
A typical heart transplant lasts an average of 11 years, and in September of 2007 Compton knew he was on borrowed time with his 16-year-old heart. When he started to feel the beginnings of a heart attack, he immediately left the golf course and sped to his local hospital some four miles away, going through four red lights and one toll booth to get to the emergency room with just minutes to spare. Physicians at Jackson Memorial Hospital were able to repair his blocked left artery, but it was obvious that he would need another heart transplant, the sooner the better. In recent interviews, Compton has acknowledged that he was mentally prepared to die in the event that a suitable donor could not be found within the year.
In mid-May of this year, a 26-year-old former college volleyball played died in a motorcycle accident. On May 20, Compton had a 14-hour surgery to replace his heart. The procedure was a success and two months later he returned to golf, working with his longtime instructor Jim McLean. He couldn”t hit the ball out of his shadow at first, but slowly and surely his stamina returned and he started regaining his distance and superior ballstriking skills.
In August, Compton married his wife, Barbara. He sent in his application to Q School, realizing that is was a crapshoot and that he was still probably one year away from getting his golf game back to where it had been prior to his 2007 heart attack. He petitioned the PGA Tour and received permission from the circuit to use a motorized golf cart under the auspices of the Casey Martin Rule. He and Barbara are anticipating the birth of their first child during the winter of 2008. The due date is Feb. 27, exactly 27 years to the date after he had his first transplant.
Missing out on the final stage of PGA Tour Qualifying by one stroke would be an upsetting and depressing proposition to most young golf professionals, especially a newlywed with a child on the way. Yet for Erik Compton, it”s all about the big picture ? a much bigger picture. Thanksgiving of 2008 was without a doubt a memorable one for Erik and Barbara Compton.
Finally, while many PGA Tour golf professionals have a multi-national sponsor”s name and logo on their large tour bags, Compton is an exception to that rule. His golf bag freely advertises “The Transplant Foundation” and “Organ Donor Awareness.”
