Matt Fitzpatrick got his major moment on the last hole of the U.S. Open

SYDNEY, Australia – The trademark smile and quick-witted humor has never left former PGA TOUR player Jarrod Lyle, even though he’s certainly had reason to let them slip. Three times in his life Lyle has been struck down by acute myeloid leukemia, interrupting a promising golf career. As a 19-year-old, he was given less than a 20 percent chance of survival. He beat the odds and went on to make his way to the PGA TOUR. The cancer returned after he finished fourth at the 2012 Genesis Open, the best finish of his career. He was once again given grim odds. Lyle won again and returned to the PGA TOUR to try again. Unable to reclaim his TOUR card, Lyle returned to his native Australia to play his home tour, dabble in some commentary and take up a business selling golf apparel. He’d basically given the sticks away.  Then the leukemia returned again this year. Once again, Lyle fought his way into remission, but the battle is far from over. Next week, he faces a new battle for his life. He will gamble on stem cell therapy and have a haploidentical transplant with the help of his younger brother, Leighton. Unable to find a full bone marrow match for a transplant. he will instead go with a 50 percent match and hope for the best. He’s been given a 25 percent chance of success and told it’s basically his last hope of a cure. This week, he will watch the Australian Open in Sydney from a merchandise tent for his Lyle Apparel brand and also join the host broadcaster for some commentary. Next week, he will enter hell again. “It will be the hardest chemotherapy I have ever had to have. They want to get rid of my bone marrow,â€� Lyle told PGATOUR.com while five-year-old daughter Lucy threw feathers in the air and blissfully played nearby. “They are going to kill me from the inside out. They want to get my bone marrow to the point it is gone, and it’s never going to grow back.â€� He will enter a Melbourne hospital on November 29. Over five days, he’ll undergo two types of chemo, including one extremely toxic on the liver. He then has a day without any treatment before his brother’s cells are pumped in. The next two days might be the worst of all. “Those two days are likely to be very bad days for me. My body will recognize Leighton’s cells and will fight them,â€� Lyle explains. “My doctor said he is confident we can get it to work. If he didn’t believe it could work, we wouldn’t be doing it. But to hear the odds, and knowing it’s my last chance, it wasn’t the easiest conversation to have or information to hear.â€� With wife Briony steadfast by his side and daughters Lusi (5) and Gemma (18 months) foremost in his thoughts he is once again steeled to fight. “I know I am pushing stuff up a very steep hill. It opened our eyes that we are still struggling but there are a whole lot of things I still want to do in life and I have to keep fighting as much as I can to make that happen,â€� he said. “It’s kind of like I am filling up my positive bottle of energy now that I can use when things aren’t going well. I will have things to draw on and use and try to help me get through it all.â€� Despite exhaustion at times, Lyle has made huge efforts of late to take his daughters to the park, the beach, the playground and anywhere else he can to plant great memories in their heads. He craves the normalcy. And being at The Australian this week has him once again contemplating what would be a third comeback for the ages. He found himself wandering inside the ropes, ignoring the regulation crosswalks. “All things being equal, if I could play one more event, I’d be happy,â€� he said. “I don’t know how my body is going to turn out after this. I don’t know how much damage the chemo will do. But if I can play one event, my heart is still there. “Being here this week, it’s hard to be on the other side of the ropes. I feel like I am still part of the playing fraternity. The support from all walks of life, from all over Australia and the world, there are a lot of people behind me. That always feels good.â€� Lyle is in the process of writing a book about his life experiences, one he hopes will help people get through similar challenges in life. The hope for all is he’s signing copies at the 2018 Australian Open.

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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Aaron Wise beat Brooks Koepka by two shots in the final round of THE NORTHERN TRUST during last season’s FedExCup Playoffs but walked off the course knowing he needed to adapt to compete with the PGA TOUR Player of the Year. Neither had won the opening Playoff (Wise was fifth, Koepka eighth) but Wise had paid particular attention to Koepka’s ability to hit mid-irons out of the rough and on to the greens during their pairing. The former college star knew there was no way he could do that with his slight frame and if he was to continue his winning habits, he felt he might need to change things up. As a result Wise has since put on 20 pounds of muscle. It was an interesting choice given he had already won the NCAA Championship with Oregon and had trophies from the Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada, the Web.com Tour and the PGA TOUR. He is the reigning PGA TOUR Rookie of The Year thanks mainly to his win at the AT&T Byron Nelson last year. So far this season Wise is 101st in the FedExCup with his lone top-10 coming last November at the Mayakoba Golf Classic. Stats suggest it is not getting used to his new frame that is the problem, unless the extra muscle has him hammering putts a little too hard. While ranked 16th on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee Wise is 176th in Strokes Gained: Putting. But on Thursday at the U.S. Open Wise produced his best opening round of the year. He shot a 5-under 66 at Pebble Beach to join a four-way tie for second, just one behind Justin Rose and gained 4.36 strokes on the greens in the round, ranked fourth in the field. “It was solid, it was nice to get my putter going. That’s kind of what’s been missing this whole year for me in a way. And today I was able to putt well,â€� Wise said. “Just really matching line and speed. I don’t think it is stroke-related at all. It’s just reading the putt correctly and hitting it with the appropriate speed and just been doing a lot of drills to emphasize that and it seems to be working.â€� But back to Koepka, the man who has won four of his last eight majors. Wise has built up a friendship with him. And is still trying to learn from him. They played a practice round together this week where Wise was once again keenly observing. “Something I can take away from him is just his calmness,â€� Wise said. “He’s literally the calmest person in the world. It’s just a calming influence and I can kind of just take away his mentality towards these (events), and the fact that he really slows things down and calms things down even more and that works well for him.â€� Just like Koepka Wise isn’t short on confidence. He expects more than he has delivered thus far this season but knows there is still time. He hopes that patience is rewarded. “Winning is kind of a habit,â€� he explains. “The only way you know you can do it is if you actually do it and put yourself in those situations over and over again. And winning last year… just makes you hungrier and makes you want to get there more. “I haven’t had exactly the best year yet but we still have two majors left and a WGC event and the Playoffs. There are still some big events ahead of me and I don’t need to kind of rush and think that this year is over almost already.â€�

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