Golfer continues

recovery with JDC visit

Maybe the only thing more improbable than Tyler Swanson's

appearance at last year's John Deere Classic - when the 20-

year-old became the first amateur to make the JDC cut since

1971 - was his return to the TPC @ Deere Run last week.

Only two months earlier Swanson was in a coma after suffer-

ing a severe brain injury in a car accident near Grinnell, Iowa.

With the Iowa State junior-to-be still in rehab, doctors gave

him the OK to attend the tournament as a spectator. "It'd be

a hell of a lot nicer if I was hitting balls," he joked. "But I can

live with this. I'm here. It's a good day." Swanson, meanwhile,

has an open-ended sponsor's exemption from tournament

officials, one he vowed to be able to accept next year.

GolfWorld, July 16, 2004