Australian golf Jarrod Lyle dies after long cancer battle

In this Nov. 10, 2011 file photo, Australia’s Jarrod Lyle watches his ball on the 18th hole during the first round of the Australian Open golf tournament in Sydney. Lyle has died after a long struggle with cancer. He was 36. “It breaks my heart to tell everyone that Jarrod is no longer with us,” the golfer’s wife, Briony Lyle, said in a statement on Thursday, August 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith, File)

MELBOURNE, Australia — Australian golfer Jarrod Lyle has died after a long struggle with cancer. He was 36.

“It breaks my heart to tell everyone that Jarrod is no longer with us,” the golfer’s wife, Briony Lyle, said in a statement Thursday. “He passed away peacefully at 8.20 p.m. last night having spent his final week among his family and close friends.”

Briony Lyle said her husband had asked her to pass on a “simple message: ‘Thanks for your support, it meant the world. My time was short, but if I’ve helped people think and act on behalf of those families who suffer through cancer, hopefully it wasn’t wasted.'”

Lyle, who won twice on the Nationwide Tour in 2008, was first diagnosed with leukemia as a teenager and suffered recurrences of the disease in 2012 and 2017.

He returned to the U.S. PGA Tour in 2013 after apparently having beaten cancer for a second time.

But the illness returned and Lyle last week announced his decision to forego further treatment and enter palliative care.

He was survived by Briony and daughters Lusi, 6, and Jemma, 2.

“Lusi, Jemma and I are filled with grief and now must confront our lives without the greatest husband and father we could ever have wished for,” Briony Lyle said.

“At the same time, we have been blessed and overwhelmed with the messages and actions of support from around the world and feel comforted that Jarrod was able to happily impact so many people throughout his life. Our humble thanks to you all,” she added.

Lyle was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in 1999 when he was 17. He spent much of the next nine months in a hospital in Melbourne and it was another year after that before he could walk around a golf course.

He gradually reduced his handicap to scratch and earned a golf scholarship before turning professional in 2004. He qualified for the Asian Tour in 2005 and started playing on the second tier of the U.S. tour in 2006.

After an another setback he made an emotional comeback to a Victorian state golf course during the 2013 Australian Masters before using a medical exemption to play on the U.S. PGA Tour in 2015.

Lyle underwent a bone marrow transplant last December following a recurrence of acute myeloid leukemia but opted recently not to continue with treatment after saying he’d “reached his limit” and that he and his doctors had agreed that a “positive outcome” was no longer achievable.

The family said a private family service would be held in the coming days with a public memorial service in Torquay, near Melbourne in Victoria state, at a later date.    /kga