DORAL, Fla. — Jason Bohn is not playing the WGC-Cadillac Championship this week at Trump Doral, but that’s just fine with him. He feels lucky to be alive.
Bohn suffered what he termed a “major heart attack’’ shortly after he had made the cut on the number at 3-over in Friday’s Honda Classic second round. He was rushed to a nearby hospital and never got to play his third round on Saturday, staying hospitalized through the weekend.
“I had 99 percent blockage in my LAD artery, which they call the ‘widow-maker,’ ’’ Bohn said Monday in an interview with SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio. “So I was very fortunate that I was able to get some treatment. The craziest part about the whole situation is I had no idea that I was having a heart attack. I would have thought having a heart attack was going to [be] like somebody was slapping me in the face saying, ‘You’re having a heart attack, you need to stop doing what you’re doing, you have to go to the hospital.’
“But for me it wasn’t the case. I struggled playing the golf course and struggled breathing, walking and catching my breath and doing some things, but I was diagnosed with the flu the week of Pebble Beach and I had bronchitis and so I just kinda thought it was all of that together.”
The 42-year-old Bohn, ranked No. 72 in the world with two career victories, said he wanted to go back to his room to take a shower before going to the hospital with chest pains, not realizing he was having a major heart attack until paramedics put him on a stretcher and called for an ambulance.
“The EMTs at the golf course, they totally saved my life,’’ Bohn said. “They took an EKG when I got done after I signed my scorecard. They just told me that something wasn’t right. They said, ‘Hey, we’d like you to go to the hospital.’
“It was kind of a scary moment for me. I didn’t realize what was happening. I just never thought at age 42 I’d be having a heart attack to the degree that I had one. My doctors all have told me that had I passed out or gone down on the golf course that they really don’t think they would have had time to get the proper blood thinners in me, and put the stent in that they were able to do, in time.
“I got one hell of a mulligan.”
Bohn, who remained hospitalized Monday for more tests, said he looks forward to playing again, but has no idea when that will be.
“I know that this isn’t going to take me down and I’ve got a second chance,’’ he said. “When you drop that mulligan, that second ball is always better than the first ball. So I look forward to my return and I really feel like I’m going to come out of this a lot stronger than I have.”