This golfer wants to get the word out about melanoma

By Nick Pugliese

SourceMedia Group News

MARION – All the golfers participating in the Greater Cedar Rapids Open this weekend will be battling the Hunters Ridge course and the heat.

One golfer will continue fighting against a much tougher opponent.

When David Henry tees off Friday at 7 a.m., he'll be carrying awareness about melanoma in his golf repertoire along with his woods and irons.  His “Playing for a Cure” campaign started in September 2008 when his mother, Chris, was diagnosed with Stage IV malignant melanoma. Just recently, David, who grew up in Washington (Iowa), discovered that he has Stage I melanoma.

“We're golfers. We're out here in the sun all the time. We're the ones who are going to be most potent to it,” said David, whose cancer was cut out from his back and who has to get scans every 3-4 months.

“It really hits home when you're watching your mom dying from it.”

A percentage of David's winnings and sponsorships are donated to the Melanoma Research Foundation in honor of his mom, along with Jennifer Thomas, Brian Perry and Tina Miller.

Thomas, Perry and Miller all have succumbed to melanoma. Chris is still in the fight. She's here this week to watch her son and visit old friends.

“For as much as he thinks I'm an inspiration to him, it's 10-fold the other way around,” Chris said. “I wouldn't be here if it weren't for him. To be able to watch him … to be able to do something that you love and make a career out of it. It's pretty awesome.”

Some would say what Chris and Bill Henry did for their son was in the same category. David had decided to move to Winter Garden, Fl., to enter the Professional Golfer's Career College three years ago - right before his mom found out about her cancer.

“He said he wasn't going to go because he didn't want to be that far away from me,” Chris said. “I said, ‘No, you're going.' He said, ‘No, I'm not.' Then I said, ‘We will pack up and move. You're not giving up on your dreams just because I'm sick.' Within three weeks, we packed up and sold everything and we moved.”

Bill, an insurance agent, said there really was no debate. “This is what he wants to do and we're going to support him.”

David, who turned 24 on Wednesday, has been playing the Florida Mini-Tour where he's currently in the Top 10. He shot a 79 in U.S. Open Qualifying in 2010, but did not qualify for Sectionals. This will be his first Cedar Rapids Open, although he has competed at Hunters Ridge in the course's amateur tournament.

“If I make the cut, it's God's blessing,” he said. “I'm here to play golf and have fun.”

And, raise awareness about melanoma, a form of cancer that begins in the cells that create the pigment melanin. According to the National Cancer Institute, there will be an estimated 70,230 new cases of melanoma – and an estimated 8,790 deaths – in the United States in 2011. David tells everyone to get checkups every six months and look for all the signs of melanoma, including color changes on your skin and moles.

His biggest fan says watching her son compete is a better elixir than the various traditional and experimental treatments.

“I beat the odds. What I have, normally you're dead by now,” she said. “But I haven't given up and I want to see as much of him pursuing his career as I can. When God says, ‘OK, you've had enough' then …

“If he can get out there and raise awareness in a sport that obviously is played in the sun, yeah, it's very good.”

Here's a link to David's web site:

http://www.playingforacure.biz/