When you’re a survivor of a terrible illness, people want to know how you did it. They want to know the details of every move you made, every potential treatment, the mental and psychological challenges that come with it and how to overcome them. They want to know how to not give up hope. They want to know how to live.
Gene Sauers, a gentle soul and a fierce competitor, speaks on a consistent basis with people who have these questions. They want to know how he beat Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, a rare and lethal skin and mucous membrane disorder, just over 10 years ago. They want to know about how he handled the pain, how he endured that awful feeling of his skin burning from the inside out on his arms and legs. He responds to all of them. He wants to help, offer comfort and hope.
“I tell them, you get in touch with me, and you stay in touch,” he said.
But then, too often, he hears later from a friend or loved one of one of those folks with whom he had corresponded, letting him know that he or she had succumbed. And each time he gets that call or text or email, he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and thinks about his good fortune.
“The more time goes by, the more I understand how lucky I’ve been,” Sauers said. “The survival rate is said to be around 25 percent, but I’ve talked to so many people, and I only know of maybe four or five who survived. It’s pretty incredible. Golf is important to me, but you’re never going to have to tell me that there’s more to life.”
“I’ve talked to so many people, and I only know of maybe four or five who survived.”
– Gene Sauers on Stevens-Johnson Syndrome
Sauers, 58, is preparing for his eighth start in the U.S. Senior Open, which begins Thursday at Omaha (Neb.) Country Club, and although he has had little success on the PGA Tour Champions, he has played exceedingly well in this USGA event for players 50 and over.
Since he returned to golf in late 2012 after an extended hiatus, Sauers has but one victory, but it was a big one – coming in the 2016 U.S. Senior Open at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio, where he beat Miguel Angel Jimenez by a stroke in a Monday finish due to weather delays. Two years earlier, he nearly won the U.S. Senior Open at Oak Tree National in Edmond, Okla., finishing runner-up to Colin Montgomerie in a three-hole playoff after holding the 54-hole lead.
The win at Scioto was his first since the last of his three PGA Tour titles in the 2002 Air Canada Championship, a span of 13 years, 11 months, 17 days. He left the tour in 2004 in frustration, but it was golf that saved him in 2011 when he was hospitalized after suffering an adverse reaction to medication that precipitated his battle with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
A native of Savannah, Ga., Sauers spent seven weeks in the hospital and got through the ordeal by continually replaying his golf swing in his head and thinking about how he would play at certain courses on tour. Once he was out of danger, Sauers had to undergo a series of painful surgeries in which doctors had to scrape off the top layers of his skin and then graft skin from the backs of his legs to his thighs and forearms. His arms bear the scars of those skin grafts that are almost 10 years old to the day.
A solid ball striker of diminutive stature, Sauers finds the U.S. Senior Open exceptionally suited to his game. He is especially adept at finding fairways, though recently he has struggled off the tee. Two weeks ago during the Bridgestone Senior Players at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, where he ended up tied for 16th place, Sauers was looking for another driver.
“I have a driver that's too light. Usually, I hit 12-13 fairways, and right now I’m lucky to hit five or six,” he lamented. “You have to hit fairways here [on Firestone’s South Course] and you definitely want to be in the fairways in a U.S. [Senior] Open.”
Still, Sauers is hitting 73 percent of his fairways this season, 19th on the PGA Tour Champions. Clearly he has high standards.
Being in Ohio two weeks ago naturally brought back memories of his win at Scioto, where he shot 3-under-par 277 and rallied past Jimenez with a closing 69 at the course where his idol, Jack Nicklaus, grew up and learned the game. He has tried several times to get back to the Donald Ross-designed layout to play in the club’s fall event, called “The Swat.”
“I can't believe it's been five years,” he said with a grin. “I’d love to get back there. I love that place.”
He would also like to get back to the victory stand. Five top-10 finishes and 15 in the top 25 this season are fine and all, but that’s not the object of competing. “I still want to win as much as I ever did.”
And, yet, with the challenges he’s encountered in body and spirit, there is no victory on a golf course that can surpass what he overcame to keep playing a game he once quit in frustration. He is looking forward to the test at Omaha Country Club. He said it should be fun. He keeps a positive attitude.
“Sure, I get frustrated, but I don’t get down,” he said. “That’s golf, you know. Frustrating game.”
He keeps a positive attitude, however, not for the benefit of a few more birdies or a few more dollars, but for the many more calls or texts he might receive from others struggling with a disease he vanquished.
“Anyone who needs help, a word of encouragement, you tell them I’m here,” Sauers said. “I’m here, and I’m darn lucky to be here.”
Dave Shedloski is an Ohio-based writer who frequently contributes to USGA websites.
