Peter Jackson: Why Rhys Thomas is rooting for US star to win Open

When Erik Compton walks onto the first tee at the Open Golf Championship next week, a Welsh international front row forward will be with him every step of the way. If the American's name is not to be found on the leaderboard going into the final round at Royal Hoylake, it will not be for any lack of support from Rhys Thomas.
It can be said without fear of contradiction that the stricken Scarlets' tighthead prop is a man after the golfer's heart.
Compton, runner-up in last month's US Open, has had two heart transplants. Thomas is awaiting his first, two years after his career ended in an almost fatal heart attack during a training session.
“One of my friends who's mad on golf told me about this guy who's had two heart transplants and how he very nearly won the US Open,”  Thomas said.
“Every time I feel a bit low, I think of Erik Compton.  What an inspiration.”
Compton, at 34 two years older than Thomas, had his first transplant at the age of 12. With no option but to abandon contact sports, he took up golf and six years later had become the No.1-ranked junior in the US.
The second transplant took place in 2007, the year when Thomas made his first Test start for Wales against South Africa at the Millennium Stadium. Compton not only recovered but continued to earn a living on the fairways of America as though nothing untoward had happened.
The son of an American father and a Norwegian mother, he has taken the stresses of big-tournament golf in his stride. For Compton, the motivation can be found in one revealing sentence: “I'm not just a dead guy walking…”
His website page contains a message of admiration from Tiger Woods. “The attitude that it takes to go through something like that, I don't think any of us could possibly understand it,” Woods says.
“There are very few people who have had organ transplants and who have survived and had great lives. Being a professional and working his way to this level is just remarkable.”
Remarkable hardly sounds adequate  to describe Compton's stirring defiance in the face of insuperable odds. Back in Wales, another international sportsman in urgent need of a new heart has his own poignant reasons for willing Compton to win the greatest golf tournament of all.
*This article was first published in The Rugby Paper on July 6.