Tune in all Week to See How Erik and Kelly do at the Honda Classic
Erik started the day with his new wife Barbara and 8 day old Petra. At 6am the alarm went off in his 2 bedroom apartment on the 18th floor overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and North Miami Beach. While of course he has an eye on his new baby girl, he also has an eye on the first prize offered the champion and the 69 others that make the cut this week at the Honda Classic at PGA National Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
It’s a hectic drive up I-95 northbound 1.5 hours from Miami. He plans to move up here to make his life easier starting Tuesday evening. We’re not sure at this point whether or not he will bring his wife and daughter up at that time but we’ll find out later. Today at the course, it was my first time in my own life that I caddied 18 holes in a professional tournament since my foot surgery last March 12. At that time I had bone spurs removed from my right big toe joint – technically it’s called osteo arthritis so it was nice to walk the course again with a golf bag on my back and as my boss Erik had said to me when he coersed me to caddy for him at the 2004 Canadian Open “come and caddy for me. a million dollars to the winner and you 10% cut would be 100 grand” So here I am on tour hoping to win vicariously for a man who has had 3 different hearts in his body and at the ripe old age of 30 been given a third chance in life last May 20 when he had a successful 6 hour operation that installed a heart from a donor. The donor was an all american university volleyball player. When Erik recovered from that surgery and woke up he was happy to be alive and survive the ordeal and he said to his mother Eli, “I’ve gotta get better quick and get on the PGA Tour”. Just months after that heart surgery, he competed on the PGA Tour in the Children’s Miracle Network golf tournament and made the cut and his doctor said that Erik is super human and sets such strong goals he’s not one to sit around and feel sorry for himself but rather gets up off the couch and works out as hard as Camilo Villegas and Tiger Woods.
There’ll be more blogs all week long. We’ll talk about Erik’s trials and tribulations. We’ll talk about his playing partners and about his brand new contract with Titleist. So he’s playing with all new equipment this week. He’s got a lot of kinks to iron out and making sure the grip sizes are correct and the loft and lie angles are all correct. We have done 95% of that work the last week and we’re really looking forward to this week and he has asked me to consider working for him at Arnold’s Bay Hill tournament in 2 weeks. As for now we are just taking it one week at a time and more than that we are taking it one shot at a time.
Erik is a strong man but he has been dealt some bad cards. However he’s made a lot of great friends and he’s a spokesperson for all the people that have medical issues around the world. He shows that with desire you can do anything. He’s got a donor foundation that he represents but I’ll talk about that next time and today he held a news conference in front of 30 media members from around the world so there will be a lot of news on Erik this week. Until tomorrow. Kelly.
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