Furyk makes a wish come true for college student

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TJ Harvey and Jim Furyk get set to head to the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. --- Just 18 months ago, TJ Harvey was in intensive care battling a life-threatening blood disease that affects approximately one in a million young people.

Chemotherapy made the teenager's long, straight brown hair, the hair that she always used to wear in a ponytail, fall out. The steroids she had to take for nearly three months made the slender young woman's face swell and her moods fluctuate.

Badz/PGA TOUR

TJ Harvey warms up on the range.

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On Tuesday, though, TJ, who is now in remission, was at TPC Sawgrass playing golf with Jim Furyk on the back nine of the PLAYERS Stadium Course. The 19-year-old's round was made possible by the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Furyk and the PGA TOUR.

"I feel like I'm getting the opportunity that any TOUR player would have and a presidential experience," TJ said. "Everyone's treated me so nice. It's just awesome."

The day began shortly after 8 a.m. when TJ, her parents Tammy and Tom and her 20-year-old brother Thomas arrived at the clubhouse in a black stretch limousine. Furyk had already arrived and was there to open the door and greet the family.

Then it was off to the back range -- normally reserved for TOUR players like Furyk and Vijay Singh, as well as the Munchkins, the original members of the TPC Sawgrass. TJ, an eight-handicap who has been playing since she was 7 years old, immediately impressed.

Not only could she hit solid drives and delicate chips, but TJ was unfazed by the crew from PGA TOUR Productions on hand to chronicle the day for "INSIDE the PGA TOUR." Asked to film the show opening, she needed just one take.

"You've already done better than 400 TOUR pros," Fuyrk said, laughing.

TJ and the 2003 U.S. Open champ then headed to the chipping green. A rare flubbed chip prompted Furyk to tell her, "You're allowed. You don't do this for a living." And when TJ hit the pin and almost holed another, she looked back at her father with pride.

After about 10 minutes on the practice green -- "Thomas said I wasn't allowed to give her any putts," Furyk said -- the group headed over to the 10th tee at the Stadium Course, which hosts the PGA TOUR's signature event, THE PLAYERS Championship.

Doug Kidd, the player ambassador for TPC Sawgrass, was ready with the introduction.

"On the tee, the 10:24 reservation, playing out of Laney High School and representing the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, please welcome Miss TJ Harvey," he said as her family applauded.

After Furyk told her to block out the trees and the waste area down the left side -- "there's plenty of fairway out there," he said -- TJ, playing from the white tees, split the fairway with her tee shot.

"I'm sure TJ was a little nervous but she went off the first hole (and her drive) ... went right down the middle," Furyk said. "She played quite a few good holes. She had a birdie putt on 16 and knocked it in there.

"(We had) a tough pin on 17. She could have sold (her shot) for about half-a-million in THE PLAYERS Championship. (She) knocked it there about 10 feet to the back right Sunday pin."

Furyk said the time he spent with TJ "takes me back to being a young golfer and working on my game and having fun." The UNC-Wilmington golfer, on the other hand, was inspired by her round with the 13-time PGA TOUR champ.

"He's a great guy," TJ said. "He's given me plenty of pointers. It was just awesome to be out there with a guy who really knows what he's doing and able to see how the game should be played."

Furyk, not surprisingly, is TJ's favorite golfer. Even before Tuesday's round, too.

"I just think what he does is amazing," she said. "He's not a powerhouse like most guys out there and he still competes with them. His swing is really unique, and I thought it would be awesome to see that first hand."

And the best tip Furyk gave her?

"Just keep your cool out there and don't get too mad if you hit a bad shot because that affects everyone, not just you," TJ said. "And he helped me a lot with my putting -- that speed is really important."

TJ will be a sophomore at UNCW in the fall. She red-shirted last year because she was still trying to regain her strength and stamina. Tuesday, though, you'd be hard-pressed to know what this poised young woman had been through over the last year and a half.

TJ, who suffers from Crohn's disease, had a stubborn case of what was thought to be mononucleosis. She was so weak, she had to crawl to the bathroom. Her liver was failing, her spleen swollen. She was taken by ambulance to see specialists in Chapel Hill, N.C.

"It was almost like an episode of 'House' there were so many doctors in and out of her hospital room," TJ's father said. "... She was in intensive care for 2 days because they were afraid she was going to stop breathing or her organs were going to stop."

The virus that gave her mono morphed into Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis. People with HLH have too many white blood cells, which normally fight infection, but in TJ's case had started attacking healthy organs.

Chemotherapy, like TJ received, is the usual course of action but for some a bone marrow transplant is recommended. If those fail, there is no other treatment.

"To see her in the intensive care room a couple of nights (was awful)," Tom Harvey said. "And then you're counting your progress by the amount of oxygen she's on or the heart rate. And to see her now, it's just amazing."

On Tuesday, those days were a distant memory as TJ's dream was realized.

"She's just getting back to her old self," Tammy said. "We're very proud of her."