Pinehurst, N.C. – On Father's Day at our national championship, we will cheer for a man who didn't think he'd live long enough to have a child, and did so only because he has the heart of a champion, even if it's borrowed.
Erik Compton has never won a PGA Tour event, is playing in his second major championship, and missed the cut in his first. That would be enough to make him an appealing underdog, but that's not why he could become the best story in the history of the U.S. Open.
When Compton was 12, he underwent heart transplant surgery, receiving the heart of a 15-year-old girl killed by a drunk driver. While being wheeled out of the operating room, he told his parents he would become a big-league baseball player.
"They have it on camera," he said.
Seven years ago, Compton, now 34, was driving home from the driving range when his chest began to tighten. He sped to the hospital, walked into the emergency room coughing up blood, and told the staff he was having a heart attack.
"They asked him for his insurance card," his mother, Eli, said Saturday. "Until he coughed up more blood."
Compton called his parents. "He said goodbye to all of us," Eli said.
In his third decade, Compton needed a third heart. He waited eight months before receiving the heart of Isaac Klosterman, a former volleyball player at the University of Dayton, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver.