All heart: Compton on course five months after second heart transplant

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. -- It was an otherwise uneventful May night in Miami when Phil Smith's cellular telephone beeped at a few minutes past midnight.

He had received a hurried and harried text message from an old high-school friend, who in a matter of minutes was heading into the operating room for heart-transplant surgery at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Compton: 'The fact that I am out playing and competing and being able to live an active life, that's what it's all about.' (AP)

Smith, a paramedic, retrieved it from the phone's memory Tuesday. He had saved it for posterity, knowing deep down there was a chance he might never see or hear from his friend again.

"Here it is," Smith said, thumbing the phone keyboard.

"God is giving me another chance ... God bless you all and see you on the greens."

It was equal parts hopeful and prophetic, as it turned out.

As a player, 28-year-old Erik Compton can best be described as a journeyman pro, an eight-year veteran of the mini-tours, the Canadian, Nationwide and a handful of big-league events here and there. But the most amazing part of the journey is still being written, including this week at the first stage of PGA Tour Qualifying School at scenic Crandon Golf Course.

A miraculous five months and one day removed from receiving his second heart transplant, wherein he lay on a stainless-steel table with his innards splayed open with his new heart packed nearby in an ice chest, Compton is back on the job, trying to cement a place in the professional game.

"I'm hard on myself, but the truth is, it doesn't matter if I had shot 100 today," Compton said Tuesday. "The fact that I am out playing and competing and being able to live an active life, that's what it's all about."

Compton shot an uneven 4-over 76 in the first of four rounds at Crandon, which left him in the middle of the 78-man field and three strokes off the projected pace to advance. Twenty-three players and ties will move along to the second-stage qualifier, but regardless of the tally on the scorecard, the most jaw-dropping numbers were to be found elsewhere.

They are the figures 154 and 3.

Respectively, the first trio of digits represent precisely how many days it has been since Compton received his transplant, and the second marks the total number of hearts he has had beating in chest in his 28 years.

"It's one thing to go back to work," said his mother, Eli, as she watched her son play in the first round. "But this is a physical thing, an athletic thing, so it's pretty amazing."