A Recovering Azinger Is Planning to Defend His PGA Title in August

Paul Azinger is without hair, without pain and without cancer. He is not without ambition.

Azinger vowed last week to defend his PGA Championship in August. Speaking from the Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., where the PGA will be held, Azinger said he has beaten back the cancer that struck him down this past winter and kept him off the PGA Tour.

With that goal in mind, Azinger said the last six months were among the happiest times of his life, despite the fact he was dealing with the agony of chemotherapy and the angst of a life-threatening disease.

“I feel as happy and content as I have in my whole life,� Azinger said. “I was guilty of getting my happiness from where I was on the money list or winning a tournament. . . . If I was told next week I could never play golf again, I’d be all right.�

Two weeks ago Azinger completed the last of six chemotherapy sessions at Centinella Hospital Medical Center. Tests revealed there is no trace of cancer in this right shoulder blade, though he still will go through five weeks of radiation therapy beginning next week at Loma Linda, which will necessitate moving to California with his wife and two daughters.

In his first public appearance since the Skins Game in November, Azinger said he received as many as 15,000 letters of support from around the world. He said every PGA Tour player called or wrote to him.

He revealed that as far back as 1991 he had a bone biopsy on the shoulder blade because of frequent pain. But that test and others subsequent to it failed to immediately identify that problem as cancer. And all along, he said, he was thinking that it was a muscle or tendon problem, because it seemed to respond to muscle relaxants and pain killers, he thought it was just a pain that he would have to live with the rest of his career.

When Azinger was in California last fall for a tournament, he suffered a back injury and decided to get tested for it as well as the pain in his shoulder. It was then discovered he had cancer.

Azinger had his best season ever last year, winning the PGA and two other tournaments, and playing on the victorious U.S. Ryder Cup team. He would like to play at least once before the PGA and said the New England Classic in Boston the third week in July is a possibility.

“If I struggle it may be emotionally,� Azinger said. “I don’t want to be out there walking around in the park, missing four-footers and saying, ‘Oh, well, I’m alive.’ If I can’t play competitively you won’t see me out there.�