Tiger Woods' brilliant gesture for Jarrod Lyle
The love and respect Jarrod Lyle has among his golfing peers is epitomised by this wonderful gesture from the great Tiger Woods.
A chorus of golfers from around the world have sent heartfelt messages to the Aussie golfer as he ceases active cancer treatment and begins palliative care.
On Thursday, Lyle recorded an emotional message of thanks, saying the abundance of support over the years has been an uplifting force.
And among those to support the humble Aussie star was none other than Woods – arguably the greatest golfer of all time.
The year was 2012 and Lyle had just relapsed after first being diagnosed with cancer as a teenager in 1999.
Woods, who was taking part in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, knew of Lyle’s relapse and decided to wear a ‘Leuk The Duck’ pin on his hat while playing in the final round.
‘Leuk the Duck’ had come to be the symbol of the cancer charity ‘Challenge’, and Woods wanted to show his respect and support in Lyle’s time of need.
“Tiger got asked to do everything for everyone for so long, and I knew that he just didn’t do that sort of stuff,” Lyle said, according to the Herald Sun.
“He made a blanket rule … but broke it … for me. A bloke flat in a bed in Melbourne, halfway around the world.”
The 36-year-old Lyle has been fighting a third battle with cancer since a recurrence of acute myeloid leukaemia last year.
But as his condition deteriorated in hospital recently, with Lyle partially losing eyesight and having speech difficulties, wife Briony revealed on Wednesday the heartbreaking decision to end his treatment.
In a 90-second audio clip released on Thursday, Lyle confessed he’s been overwhelmed at the outpouring of goodwill across the globe.
“I feel like I’m the luckiest golfer going around because so many people took an interest in me and took an interest in, I guess, my fight,” Lyle told the Inside The Ropes podcast.
“To have so many friends around the world, whether they’re spectators, whether they’re golfers, whether they’re marshals, whatever – to have that kind of support to go to every tournament is a great feeling,” he added while breathing heavily.
“It’s going to be hard to leave that behind, but they know that I love them.
“They know that all the fighting that I did do was to get back out and play golf again.”
Despite his struggle, Lyle feels fortunate to still have his family, friends and fans backing him.
“It’s going to be hard but, at some point, it’s going to happen and they’ll get on with their lives,” he said.
A post shared by Jarrod Lyle (@jarrod.lyle) on Dec 2, 2017 at 2:52pm PST
“I just feel very, very lucky.”
Briony took to Lyle’s social media page on Wednesday to reveal he had “reached his limit” as doctors agreed they could “no longer strive for a positive outcome”.
“He has given everything that he’s got to give, and his poor body cannot take any more,” the Facebook post read, alongside a photo of Lyle clutching his young daughter in a hospital bed.
“We’ll be taking him closer to home in the next couple of days so he can finally leave the hospital.”
Lyle courageously beat cancer in 1998 and 2012 and returned to play professional golf, making an emotional comeback to the course during the 2013 Australian Masters.
with AAP