Cayeux still dreams after surgery No 28

Sport
JUST when it seemed Marc Cayeux was beginning to get back to his best after eight years of recovering from horrific injuries, which required 27 surgeries, the Zimbabwean golfer suffered setback after undergoing yet another surgical operation in South Africa last week.
Marc Cayeux

BY DANIEL NHAKANISO

JUST when it seemed Marc Cayeux was beginning to get back to his best after eight years of recovering from horrific injuries, which required 27 surgeries, the Zimbabwean golfer suffered setback after undergoing yet another surgical operation in South Africa last week.

Cayeux was severely injured in a car accident when his vehicle was involved in a head-on collision with a police truck in 2010, which left him with serious head and leg injuries and battling for life.

After 27 surgeries, his left foot was all but completely re-attached to his leg which was now shorter than before, it seemed a promising career had been cut short after being told he might never walk again.

However, last year Cayeux made a miraculous comeback after enjoying his best season on the Sunshine Tour since the horrific accident with the major highlight coming in September when he briefly held the lead in the Vodacom Origins of Golf tournament on his way to finishing seventh.

The 41-year-old golfer, who played most tournaments under intense pain, told Standard Sport in an interview last week that he had undergone ankle fusion, a type of surgery to fuse the bones of the ankle into one piece.

And just like when he underwent the 27 other operations, Cayeux still refuses to give up and is in fact planning yet another miraculous comeback after yet another surgery.

“The doctor said it [the surgery] went well for me, so only time will tell if it went well,” Cayeux said.

“The surgery was done so I that I can hopefully be able to walk 18 holes painfree as the joint on my ankle had become very, very bad and the pain had also become bad after over two years of walking and damage from the accident.”

With the story of the late American World Golf Hall of Fame member Ben Hogan — who also suffered a serious car accident before bouncing back to become one of the greatest players in the game — serving as inspiration, he is now targeting yet another miraculous return of his own.

“I hope I can come back to golf after the ankle fusion. I’m determined to make it work. Yes, I was starting to compete again far from what I was before the accident, but in time will reach there. I just hope the operation has worked out as planned,” he said.

After leaving school at 14 to pursue a career in golf, Cayeux turned pro in 1996 after representing Zimbabwe as an amateur at the Eisenhower Trophy in Manila, Philippines.

He won his the first of his nine Sunshine Tour tournaments two years later at the Zambia Open before collecting a further trio of wins on the European Challenge Tour to assume the unofficial title of Zimbabwe’s best player since the heyday of Nick Price, Tony Johnstone and Mark McNulty.

In 2005, Cayeux qualified for the WGC-NEC Invitational, and he played the first two rounds at Firestone with Tiger Woods.