Immelman: surgery in December
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Masters leader Trevor Immelman admits he has a new perspective on life after a recent cancer scare.
The South African had a benign tumour removed from his diaphram in December and less than four months later shot back-to-back 68s to lead at the halfway point at Augusta.
"It definitely gives you perspective, because I went from winning a tournament to lying in a hospital bed waiting for results on a tumour," Immelman said. "It definitely made me realise that golf wasn't my whole life.
"I have a real passion for golf and I put a lot of hours in and made a lot of sacrifices to try and succeed at the game.
"I'm definitely driven to try and achieve things. Whilst it gave me perspective on the one point, I was still trying to get back to the form I was showing before it all happened."
Just six weeks after his operation, the 29-year-old returned to PGA Tour action at the Phoenix Open but missed the cut in four of seven starts before this week, his best finish a tie for 40th at the WGC-CA Championship.
"It took a couple of weeks before I could walk again. I got a seven-inch incision across the right side of my back. Once I kind of worked my way through all the morphine and stuff they had me on, and started finding my feet again, it seemed to come back fairly quickly.
Gingerly
"It was about six weeks before I could hit a few chips and putts and another week before I could hit some balls and get out on to the course.
"So it was a couple of months that I was, you know, operating quite gingerly and after that I could kind of get back to it."
But he has had just one bogey on his way to heading the leaderboard after 36 holes here and admits Augusta is a very special place for him.
"The whole atmosphere, the mystique, the way the golf course is set up, the way the golf course is prepared for us, you know, everything about this tournament and this venue, it's what dreams are made of," he added.
"Every single player that's here has dreamt of playing in this tournament, so that's absolutely true."
