Former British Open golf champ Brian Harman is playing with an extremely heavy heart this week. (Watch the video below.)
The three-time PGA tour event winner said a family friend has been in a coma after she tried to save his 6-year-old son from drowning in Florida.
Speaking to reporters before the RSM Classic in his home state of Georgia, he said he was competing in China while his wife and their kids vacationed with friend Cathy Dowdy in Ponte Vedra Beach.
“My son … was out boogie boarding with one of his really good friends. He got ripped out to sea by just a rip current. … This was an abnormally bad one,” the golfer said.
Dowdy raced into the water but “couldn’t get to him” and “got injured really badly,” he said. “She’s been in a coma going on six weeks now.”
“Obviously, our world down here was kind of turned on its head,” he said. “I don’t really know what I wanted to kind of say, other than I wanted to use whatever platform I did to bring awareness to what Cathy did.”
Harman also mentioned a man named Crane Cantrell who contributed to the rescue and made it out of the water along with his son. “They disregarded their selves, went into the water to save my son,” he said. “I think that bravery and doing something like that for people who aren’t your blood is just the most beautiful thing you can do in this life.”
A lifeguard got Dowdy out of the water and gave her CPR until emergency personnel arrived, local news site St. Johns Citizen reported. Dowdy remains on a ventilator in a Savannah, Ga., hospital, according to the outlet.
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A GoFundMe on her behalf has raised more than $85,000.
Harman, currently ranked 24th in the world, was tied for 38th place at 1-under-par after the first round of the RSM on Thursday. He won the British Open, officially known as The Open Championship, in 2023.
