The brave heart! The inspiring story of the twice heart transplanted golfer Erik Compton! His achievements, career, retirement plans!
Erik’s achievements
Erik has been playing golf since the age of 12. Six years down the lane, Erik had risen to the number 1 slot in junior-level golf in the USA. He was given the 1998 AJGA Rolex Junior Player of the Year award.
His great golf skills were appreciated and he received a scholarship to play golf for the University of Georgia. He represented the University at the 2001 Palmer Cup and Walker Cup successfully.
He turned professional in 2001. He is the only player in the world who is playing golf and is twice the recipient of a heart transplant. He dominated the 2004 Canadian Tour and won twice.
He also won in 2005 in Morocco. He has also topped many mini-tours. He was honored with the Ben Hogan Award in Augusta, Georgia during the 2009 Masters Tournament for his valor at play.
He won the 2011 Mexico Open. The US Sports Academy gave Erik the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Courage Award in 2012.
He also played well at the 2013 Honda Classic. He was also awarded the Donate Life Champion prize for his great efforts to raise awareness about organ donation amongst the general public.
His best finish was at the 2014 US Open when he was with the PGA Tour. This led him for the first time to be invited to the Master’s Tournament and the 2015 US Open.
The difficult last two-three years
Erik’s health issues have increased over the last couple of years making it difficult for him to continue with his dreams. But he continues to play against all odds. His transplanted heart has been demonstrating some progression of rejection.
He said:
He has been experiencing the side effects of the prescribed medicines. Besides, the number of medicines that he has to consume daily has increased tremendously.
Besides, his pay is inadequate to meet the expenditure he incurs on his medicines. He gets fatigued due to his prescribed drugs and there is also an element of mental exhaustion added on.
Erik is aware of all these happenings in his life and had said in 2016:
He is aware that as a player, he should not make any excuses. He said:
Erik was even thinking of retiring and spending time with his family since he knows that life for him is too short. Heart transplant patients are said to have an average of 15 years.
He added:
About Erik Compton’s heart transplant
Erik had viral cardiomyopathy (viral affliction of the heart muscles) when he was small. This affected the functioning of his heart and made the heart contractions and pumping weak.
Hence he was given a heart transplant when he was 12 years old. He gave up contact sports and took to playing golf since then.
But his second heart too started malfunctioning and at the age of 28, his transplanted heart was replaced with a new one. It seemed ok with the medicines to prevent rejection.
But now, the transplanted second heart was also showing signs of rejection. Medicines to control the rejection were ongoing but seemed not fully helpful.
Erik had founded a Foundation and inspires people to pledge organ donation and register for it.
