By Jeremy Harness

When you talk to any PGA Tour player, you will inevitably come across a story of adversity that has caused them to dig down deep and decide if playing professional golf is really worth the grind.

Of those stories that will make their way into the mainstream, few are as compelling as the ones of Jarrod Lyle and Erik Compton, both of whom are in the field for this week’s Frys.com Open. Playing on the tour is certainly a grind, as maddening as at is rewarding, but it is undoubtedly a cakewalk in comparison with the journeys of these two men.

When he was nine, Compton was diagnosed with a condition called cardiomyopathy, where the heart muscle is inflamed and cannot pump as hard as it should. As a result, he has had to undergo two heart transplants, the first one at age 12 and the second procedure coming in 2008.

Compton has not only survived on the PGA Tour, but particularly based on his 2013-14 season, he has thrived. After playing mini-tours, as well as on the NGA Hooters Tour over the years, he won the Mexico Open on the Nationwide (now the Web.com) Tour in 2012 to win his first major tour event.

He made 16 of 26 cuts on the PGA Tour in 2012 before getting his first top-10 finish on the PGA Tour in the 2013 Honda Classic, and then finished tied for second in last year’s U.S Open, considered the tour’s most difficult major.

“Last year was an awesome year,” said the 34-year-old Compton, who tees it up with Tim Wilkinson and Ben Martin on Thursday at 1:05 pm PST and on Friday at 8:05 am PST. “They’re doing great things with transplants (now), and today, I watched someone who just reached their 30 years after their first transplant.

“This is a special week to be here.”

Lyle hopes to mimic Compton’s success on the course, but he has already shown as much courage off of it. Lyle, who qualified for this week’s event on Monday with a round of 66, was first diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia at age 17 and then suffered a recurrence of the disease in 2012.

Having that kind of condition can easily get one’s spirits considerably down, but Lyle does not show any of that, especially these days.

“In all honesty, I think the two times that I’ve had it, I don’t think I’ve ever said ‘why me,’” Lyle, 33, said. “It’s something that makes me very proud, that I’ve never sort of backed away from the fire. I’ve sort of come straight up to it.

“I’m not going to let it beat me because I’ve had things I’ve wanted to achieve.”

Lyle, who is grouped with Heath Slocum and Tom Gillis and tees it up Thursday at 7:15am PST and on Friday at 12:15pm PST, has certainly caught the admiration of Compton.

“He’s a hero to many people,” Compton said of Lyle. “What a strong individual he is for what he’s been through.”