Two heart transplants later, he's in Open

 

       Erik Compton is not your everyday golf story. He took up golf mostly because he suffered from a heart ailment that requred a transplant when he was 12 and couldn't devote time and energy to the other sports, which he loved. He endured a serious heart attack in 2007 that would have claimed his life had he not been 5 minutes from a hospital. And he had another transplant in 2008.

        Now here he is, having qualified last week for his first major.

        "I'm not going to say I expected him to do it, but I expected him to do it," his father Peter said here at Pebble Beach a little while ago.

           More on Erik, his wife, their 14-month-old daughter and his tough journey in tomorrow's Newsday.