Golf: Cancer survivor just keeps on swinging

On Anzac Day last year Jarrod Lyle was beaten 5 and 4 by fellow Australian Gavin Flint in the final of the New Zealand amateur championship at Taupo. About 100 people were watching.

Last Sunday the 23-year-old Victorian finished equal third in the A$2 million ($2.2 million) Heineken Open at Royal Melbourne before a gallery of thousands and a television audience of millions. He took home a cheque for A$115,500 ($127,000).

Those who met the personable Aussie at Taupo admired his game and marvelled that he had survived a battle with leukaemia in his teens. Perhaps we should have realised that winning that fight would make the switch to professional golf no big hurdle.

Lyle went from Taupo to Europe, where he broke his right hand at St Andrew's and missed six weeks of golf before playing in the Eisenhower world amateur championships, in which Australia finished 12th.

"I turned pro pretty much as soon as I got back to Australia. New Zealand is my seventh tournament.

"I haven't missed a cut in the first six and I've had three top-10 finishes," he said.

"I've been playing great. People say that making that step from amateur to professional is going to be tough but to be honest I haven't found it that different.

"It's another group of guys with golf swings and you've really got to be on your game."

But what about the pressure of playing - and at a late stage leading - the tournament in Melbourne before big crowds with a lot of money at stake?

"I was feeling it a bit. But you've got to block it out as much as you can.

"There's really only two people on the golf course, the player and the caddie, and you've got to keep that in mind all the time.

"It was emotional for me because my whole family was there and it's been my best finish in Australia's richest tournament.

"It almost felt like my home town because there were so many Shepparton people there.

"There were people I'd grown up with and mates I hadn't seen for five or six years.

"Of course it was emotional being through what I've been through." Lyle was diagnosed with leukaemia six years ago and endured some intensive treatment before coming back to golf just under four years ago.

"In those four years I've come along heaps.

"I wasn't anything special as a junior.

"I won some junior tournaments back home but nobody would have stood back and said: 'This guy Lyle's going to be a star'.

"For some reason things just clicked. Things started to happen and here I am."

Making it into the field for the Heineken and Holden New Zealand Open was the result of making the most of his chances at the end of last season.

He received sponsors' invites into the Australian Open, PGA and Masters and made just enough money to earn a card for this year.

"I had to finish in the top 60 on the money list and I ended up 59th. I had to hole a 10-footer on the last hole of the Masters or I would have had to tee it up two days later in the tour school."

At the end of a very hot and ultimately frustrating day at Gulf Harbour, he looks less weary than many and he no longer needs any medication.

But he carries the symbol of a cancer support group on his cap and even in his amateur days was very active in Shepparton helping the cause.

His Melbourne effort has made him an outstanding example of what can be achieved.