PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – The 4:03 p.m. (ET) starting time at Pebble Beach Thursday was an Oklahoma State reunion with Charles Howell III grouped with Alex Noren and promising amateur Austin Eckroat.
The inspirational story behind the story was Eckroat’s 48-year-old caddie and mentor, Donnie Darr. In December, a golf-ball sized tumor in his colon was diagnosed as third stage colorectal cancer. Six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation, five days a week at MD Anderson in Houston, sent Darr home to Stillwater to his job as assistant men’s golf coach at OSU.
“You just kind of sit around and have a lot of time to think,” Darr explained Thursday.