By Golf Digest Digital Staff
Photo By Chris Sanford
June 11, 2009
John Atkinson, the Nebraska man whose inspirational story was the basis for his inclusion in the first Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge, died Thursday after a battle with lung cancer. He was 40.
Atkinson was picked from 56,374 entrants to be a contestant in last year's Open Challenge, in which he and three celebrities played Torrey Pines just days before the best players in the world arrived there for the U.S. Open. A lifelong non-smoker, Atkinson had been diagnosed in March 2007 with inoperable lung cancer. But as a devoted golfer, he continued to play through chemotherapy, and he won a legion of fans in his effort to try to break 100 on the Open course. The fact that he shot 114 that day did little to detract from his story.
"I've enjoyed golfing throughout my chemotherapy," Atkinson wrote in his essay before the Challenge. "Golf gives me great pride, inspiration and strength as I continue teeing it up with my friends. Nothing's better than taking your buddies while on chemotherapy!"
Atkinson leaves behind a wife and three children. His death comes a day before the second Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge, to be played at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, N.Y.
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