Golfer Charlie Beljan's wild week ends with first PGA Tour win
After leaving round two in an ambulance, rookie bags first PGA Tour title, scores next year's card
Charlie Beljan felt as if his heart was about to burst out of his chest at Disney, and he could not have felt better.
This was not another panic attack gone wild, like the one that sent him to the hospital in an ambulance after the second round and made him feel like he was going to die. This was the prospect of winning on the PGA Tour for the first time.
The roller coasters at the Magic Kingdom are nothing like what Beljan went through in the final PGA Tour event of the year.
Two days after he was wheeled out of the scoring room on a stretcher, the 28-year-old rookie was celebrating on the 18th green as the band played Zippity-Do-Dah. He arrived at the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals Classic with his job in jeopardy, and left with a two-year exemption that will send him to Maui at the start of the year, the PGA Championship at Oak Hill and lots of other tournaments where winners belong.
"Every day I drove underneath that Disney sign coming in here that said, 'Where dreams come true', and that's just what happened this week," Beljan said after closing with a 3-under 69 for a two-shot win. "And I'm so grateful and so honoured."
By the sound of it, he was lucky to be playing.
Beljan could hardly breathe and his blood pressure soared during his second round, when paramedics followed him around the back nine. After sleeping for only an hour or so in the hospital following a variety of tests, he played on Saturday fearful of having another panic attack. When he awoke on Sunday morning, his head was throbbing and his stomach felt queasy.