Photo by Jesse Hutcheson | Special to The Roanoke Times

Chip Sullivan of Daleville stops to take an insulin shot during last month's SunTrust State Open of Virginia.

Photo by Jesse Hutcheson | Special to The Roanoke Times

Chip Sullivan of Daleville, Virginia tees off at hole three of the SunTrust State Open of Virginia held at Independence Golf Club in Midlothian, Virginia on July 19, 2007.

Before people can totally comprehend the significance of Chip Sullivan's playing in next week's PGA Championship, they must fully understand where he was eight months ago.

The 42-year-old head pro at Daleville's Ashley Plantation Golf & Country Club must have wondered last December if he would ever play golf at a high level again.

It was a week before Christmas. As his three young children eagerly counted down the hours to the arrival of St. Nick, Sullivan, the epitome of the caring, loving father, was anything but excited.

He was sick. So vilely sick that the game that has owned his life -- golf -- might as well have been just another obscene four-letter word.

He was in absolutely no mood or condition to even grip a golf club, much less muster up the energy to hit a ball.

"I was feeling just real weak. ... I just wanted to take naps every day," Sullivan said. "I remember saying to myself, 'This isn't right.' Kari [his wife] had bronchitis, and I said, 'Man, I must have bronchitis.'

"So I went to get it checked out. The doctors did some blood work and found out that I have two diseases that can't be repaired. And I'll have them the rest of my life. There is no cure for them."

Sullivan was found to have hemochromatosis, an inherited disease in which too much iron builds up in the blood. The same malady had struck his older sister Kerry. It poisoned her liver and ultimately killed her at age 44 in August 2004.

On top of that, Sullivan also was informed he had diabetes.

Kari Sullivan, a teacher at Bonsack Elementary School, was petrified about what the illnesses might do to her husband.

"It was bad," Kari Sullivan said. "Chip was very, very scared. Hey, his sister had passed away from the same thing shortly after he had played so great in the 2004 PGA Championship."

Kari Sullivan said she held frequent conversations with her father, Tom Hall, when Chip wasn't around. Hall, the assistant superintendent for Roanoke County Schools, serves as his son-in-law's regular caddy.

"While we both knew that there are people with much more severe illnesses in the world like cancer, we were just saying, 'Oh, my God, is this going to be the end for Chip's playing ability? And what's going to happen? ... How is he going to handle that if the health takes over?

"I mean golf has been Chip's whole life. Ever since he was young, the way he felt like he garnered attention from his family and friends was through his playing ability. ... That's just been ingrained in him since he was tiny.

"So Dad and I were very concerned. And Chip, of course, was just very stoic, just very down and blue. He keeps everything to himself."

Fighting back

Shortly after marrying Kari Sullivan, Chip Sullivan made it through what some have called the toughest chore in sports -- surviving PGA Tour Qualifying School -- and earned his 1997 PGA Tour playing card. His best finish in 27 events was a tie for 36th, and he won only $41,019.

Still, he was one of the hardest-hitting and longest drivers of the ball on tour. After the initial shock of hearing he was being invaded by two diseases, Sullivan decided he would crush those things, too.

Never touching a club along the way, Sullivan spent three months doing what he had to do to calm the diseases. He gave two pints of blood weekly. He learned how to give himself insulin shots.

"Every time I eat, I stick a needle in myself," Sullivan said. "Five or six shots a day, but, hey, there are millions of people every day who do that. I'm still fatigued some now. It's going to take a while because the doctors still don't know how to diagnose the two [diseases] combined. I take tons of pills and medicine. I've switched doctors and I just recently got two more new medicines. And if that doesn't work out, I need to look at the [insulin] pump."

Sullivan's golf game suffered miserably from all the inactivity and not pounding practice balls or playing daily.

"Chip was frustrated. ... He's never had to manage anything in his life physically," Hall said.

Sullivan kept plugging away, though, and finally saw some spark reappear in his game a couple of months ago. All the components then ignited in the June 21-24 PGA Professional National Championship in Sunriver, Ore.

Suddenly, as if somebody somewhere had thrown a switch, Sullivan's game came together. After playing his first 25 holes in 4-over at the 72-hole event that included 312 of the nation's top club pros, Sullivan played the final 47 holes 10-under to blow past 55 players and coasted home with an easy four-stroke victory.

Hall, who once shot a 62 at Countryside, said he was awestruck by what he saw from his son-in-law in Oregon.

"It was just scary," Hall said. "I've seen the best on-tour play. And Chip was hitting the ball as well as anybody I've ever seen for those days. He was killing the ball off the tee, his approach shots were never leaving the flag stick, he was making all kinds of putts.

"I've known the guy for 10 years, and I never thought he would work his way through this and be the golfer ... or even better than he was 10 years ago. Honestly, I believe now that Chip had it [the diabetes] when he was on tour and didn't know it.

"There were a lot of people who were there [in Oregon] and they just couldn't believe the management, the confidence, how relaxed he was. Things didn't get to him like they used to. And he just walked away with the thing."

Finding gold out West

Thankfully, Sullivan & Co. didn't have to walk home from the Pacific Northwest. Although it had to leave the 17-pound Walter Hagen Trophy behind to be shipped to Daleville by mail, the clan -- Chip, Kari, children Kalley, 9; Camryn, 5; and Colby, 3; and Tom Hall -- returned home with a $75,000 winner's check, an $8,000 Rolex watch, a load of luggage, tons of dirty laundry and a bunch of tired smiles on their faces.

Besides the automatic exemption into the 89th PGA Championship, which begins Thursday at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., Chip Sullivan received a rash of other perks: a bonus check from TaylorMade Golf equipment ("Let's just say it's substantial," he said with a grin); automatic exemptions into six PGA Tour events in the next 12 months; the captain's spot on the PGA Cup team (the club pros' smaller rendition of the Ryder Cup competition), which will be Sept. 17-23 at Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, Ga.; plus exemptions into final qualifying for the U.S. Open and British Open next year.

"It's unreal," Sullivan said. "We leave here one week, we come back, and everything has changed."

Suddenly, Sullivan has a shot through the six exemptions to possibly earn his way back on the PGA Tour next year.

"We're going to find out how big it is," Sullivan said. "I don't think I know yet. I have opportunities now that I didn't have before. Those six events could multiply into something bigger.

"Yeah, it's still a long shot. The past club pro winners have done miserably in their six PGA exemptions. Then again, I've been out there and made cuts. So it's not new to me. Plus, I get to pick and choose the courses I like to play. So I feel like I'm entering these events as not maybe a contender, but as somebody who can make the cut and compete on the weekend.

"Who knows? After all that's gone on here the past eight months, I truly believe that anything can happen. Who knows where this may take me?"