It has to be a strange feeling, walking around with someone else's heart in your chest. Well, a heart that once belonged to someone else.
Erik Compton is on his third heart, so he's experienced that body-meld, that meeting of souls twice. Those transplants and his cultivated golf talent have taken him around the world to play the sport he loves and put him in touch with thousands of people who are fascinated by his story or have one similar to his. At this week's Memorial in Ohio, Compton got to meet someone whose story intertwines with his.
Jim Nantz and the @GolfOnCBS crew just shared an absolutely incredible @ErikCompton3 story... http://t.co/JqQEnSU6Zp
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 7, 2015
On Sunday, CBS golf anchor Jim Nantz shared the story on-air of a chance encounter Compton had at a Tucci's, a well-regarded Columbus-area restaurant. During the dinner, Compton's server learned of the golfer's backstory of being a two-time heart transplant recipient. She told Compton that her nephew's heart had been given to another man after he died eight years ago. Perhaps already making the connection, Compton asked the server for the man's name. As it turns out, Compton was getting his food that night from that man's aunt.
As Nantz imagined on-air, that scene must have been surreal and very emotional. Compton finished with 5-over 77 on Sunday at Muirfield Village, but it was a great week nonetheless.
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