After near-death experience, Cyril Bouniol rallies at Second Stage to regain Korn Ferry Tour membership

Sometimes Korn Ferry Tour Q-School can feel like life or death.

Until it isn’t.

Cyril Bouniol, a 35-year-old Frenchman who has never earned a PGA TOUR card but is heading to Final Stage for the fourth time, quickly became the story of Second Stage after firing rounds of 64-63 at Plantation Preserve GC to advance on the number. It was an epic 36-hole turnaround after opening with rounds of 70-74. He birdied the 72nd hole of the qualifier, then learned he advanced on the number while waiting to board his flight home.

But Bouniol’s golfing effort at Second Stage is even more impressive when you realize where he had been just 12 months prior.

“I had to sit out the year before,” said Bouniol, “because I was basically fighting for my life when Q-School was being played.

“I’m very grateful I’m getting another shot at (Final Stage) because there are a lot of guys who would love to be in my shoes right now, and this was not given to me, that’s for sure. I went out there and earned it in the face of adversity.”

Bouniol was a winner on PGA TOUR China in 2019 and earned conditional status on the Korn Ferry Tour for 2020, which turned into the 2020-21 combined season. He had a forgettable time on Tour, however, making just six cuts in 23 events.

Life took a turn for the worse after the Pinnacle Bank Championship presented by Aetna in August 2021. Bouniol said his doctors told him that after he received a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccination, he began experiencing severe side effects. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say severe reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine remain rare, Bouniol was told to be suffering through a serious autoimmune problem and an attack on his thyroid.

After the Korn Ferry Tour event in Omaha in 2021, Bouniol wanted to try to take his newborn son to France since his parents had never met him due to the travel restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic. Three days prior

to leaving, Bouniol said his wife saw his heart beating so fast his shirt was lifting off his chest. He originally thought it was just anxiety.

Within five minutes of boarding the plane, Bouniol dropped his son. He couldn’t feel his hands. On the plane ride he threw up and couldn’t feel his legs. He still doesn’t know how he made it.

A few days after he arrived, he lost the ability to walk and couldn’t speak. He would urinate uncontrollably. He was “lights out” for five days. It wasn’t an assisted coma that required being plugged into tubes and wires, but he was “completely out.” Bouniol doesn’t remember the brain scans and the tests. His parents were forced to go through his day-to-day life, to make sure he wasn’t a drug addict.

The treatment, miraculously, began to work. His vitals improved. He said his parents were told that there was a 30 to 40 percent chance he wasn’t going to make it, and a 70 to 80 percent chance that he would have permanent brain issues.

What was supposed to be a two-week trip for father and son ended up being two months. He should have stayed twice as long since the French doctors did not want him to get on a plane home. But Bouniol’s wife came over from America to help him and their son. Two days after her arrival, they returned to the U.S.

“The trip was hell,” said Bouniol. “Into March of 2022, I just couldn’t do anything. There were days I couldn’t even get out of bed.”

Bouniol’s son would come home from daycare with a sniffle or a cough – as youngsters do – but because of Bouniol’s weakened immune system, he caught his child’s illness quickly and aggressively. He was sick “almost full time” and was just fighting, he said.

About half-a-year after he began treatment, Bouniol began to hit balls again. He would max out at an hour and only began playing this past summer. Bouniol was putting off surgery – to have his thyroid removed – because of how important this stretch of golf was for what he’s chosen to do for a living. He didn’t want to do any radiation because he wouldn’t have been able to see his son for a month. The blood work continues. He’s constantly monitoring how his body is feeling and reacting to certain things.

But it was time to play golf.

Bouniol had already birdied two of his final three holes at First Stage to make it on the number. At 2 over through 36 holes in Second Stage, the veteran saw he was 11 or 12 shots behind the number, which would move lower each day.

“Basically, I was 15 or 16 shots out,” said Bouniol. “At least the assignment was clear.”

After the first two rounds, he felt like he didn’t get anything out of his game. He was making little mistakes and was being too conservative on easier shots and respecting the course too much. Mentally he had to switch. He had everything, and nothing, to lose.

“The mindset was mixed,” Bouniol admitted. “After all this effort … I’m 35 years old, doing it on my own, credit cards are loaded with golf expenses and hospital bills. Basically … that’s it. I remember texting a friend saying, ‘Well, this might be my last couple rounds of professional golf.’ That’s where I was mentally.

“Part of me was like, ‘This can’t be it.’ I didn’t make all this effort and all the sacrifices the last few years just to exit like that.”

Bouniol didn’t want to sit and accept his fate. He found resources, he said, he didn’t know were inside of him.

“I don’t have an explanation on what it was, but I wish I could and I could bottle it and recreate it every week as I move forward,” said Bouniol about his final 36 holes at Second Stage. “But sometimes things happen. Sometimes they don’t. And you can’t explain it either way.”

Bouniol got to the 72nd hole of Second Stage at 7 under on the day, thinking he needed a closing 9-under 62 to advance safely. He had a 94-yard shot. It spun back and stopped less than inch from the cup. He shot 8 under after the tap-in birdie.

He still didn’t know what was to come, though. He was in one of the first groups off No. 10 for the day, and the leaders still had between six and nine holes left.

But he sat in that uncomfortable chair at his gate in Florida, and he saw the results, and he was in. Between the recent birth of his son and his health challenges, he had a renewed perspective on what golf means – and now he has another chance to try to earn his way to the biggest stage in the sport.

“I’m on such a day-to-day journey. Is it even mentally sane to gamble on yourself? I just felt like, if I’m going to keep going with professional golf, I’m not going to sit out another year,” said Bouniol. “It gave me this don’t-give-up mentality. Everything looked bad. Did I have doubts? Absolutely. I didn’t know anything. I knew the odds were 99 percent that I this was it (after two rounds at Second Stage). But I didn’t fight that hard and try to come back to just cruise the final two rounds and be done.

“I still went out there very intentionally and tried to really play the best I could, and it worked out. It could have not. But it did.”