WINTER GARDEN, Fla. -- Brad Iles has a minor issue with his brain that, upon further review, might not prove to be such an annoyance.
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| Brad Iles is better these days but sometimes still feels effects from his accident. (AP) |
So, you say I bogeyed the last hole? Three-putted, hit one in the water or cold-shanked a wedge?
No worries, mate.
"Maybe it's a blessing in disguise," Iles laughed.
Each year, the ranks of the PGA Tour Qualifying School finals are filled with players seeking to overcome various injuries to secure or reclaim a measure of tour status. Medically, most of it is predictable fare for golfers -- bad wrists, backs and necks abound.
Apart from a six-inch scar on his head, Iles is an otherwise strapping 24-year-old, a player countryman and U.S. Open champion Michael Campbell once characterized as "the best talent to come out of New Zealand in a long time."
For Iles, that time almost became an eternity.
"I cannot believe he's here right now, to be honest with you," said Christo Greyling, who is also playing in the finals this week.
Greyling ought to know. He and a handful of other young amateur players found Iles lying unresponsive on a cart path at the site of an event on July 17, 2004, his head leaking a nauseating geyser of blood.
So, while Q-school has a litany of players who have overcome lesser forms of adversity, not many were ever air-lifted on a body board to a neurological trauma facility, minutes from being pronounced dead or rendered permanently disabled.
On the right side of Iles' head is a thick scar, plainly visible through his tightly cropped hair. As is often the case with the universally flippant fellas from Down Under, he incessantly pokes fun at his past misfortunes.
