Official Publication of the 98th Annual Resorters Golf Tournament • Echo Press
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
FREE •
VOL. 82, NO. 2
BACK IN CONTENTION Alexandria’s Steve Herzog in familiar territory after scare for his life last year By Eric Morken emorken@echopress.com he fact that Alexandria’s Steve Herzog finished as the medalist through qualifying in the Senior Division on Monday morning at the Resorters Golf Tournament comes as little surprise to anyone who has followed this event. Herzog has been there and done that in the Resorters. He figures he has played the tournament almost 40 times, and he has five championships — two in regular men’s, one in the Executive Division and two in the Senior Division. To see him shoot an even-par 72 at the Alexandria Golf Club on Monday was really par for the course for him, but Herzog and his family and friends might appreciate that round a little more than some of the others he has fired over the years. Herzog had a serious health scare that came right in the middle of the 2018 Resorters Tournament that almost cost him his life. He was playing in the matchplay portion of the championship flight. In fact, he was into the quarterfinals and playing really well before getting rushed to a hospital in Fargo with a blood disorder called Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, or TTP. “I didn’t really take it seriously because I had no suffering, but my platelet count was down to 2,000,” Herzog said on Monday after his qualifying round. “I was bruising all over. I was bleeding out. That
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Thursday I had six birdies and shot 4-under, and I was airlifted six hours later.” TTP is extremely rare. The current rate of occurrence is about 3.7 cases per million people each year, and about two-thirds of those who have TTP are women. It’s not known was causes the disorder, but it is life threatening and considered a medical emergency. It occurs when the ADAMTS13 enzyme does not function as it should. This leads to small blood clots in the blood vessels, low platelet counts and the destruction of red blood cells. Herzog was in the backyard with friends and family the night before one of his rounds in the Resorters last summer when a friend who works in the medical field told him he needed to see a doctor due to the bruising he was experiencing. He golfed his round and was at the local hospital for an appointment at 5 p.m. By 6:30, they called him back into the emergency room and told him he needed to be rushed to either St. Cloud or Fargo. “I was lucky enough that the care up at Sanford in Fargo was tremendous,” Herzog said. “They put me on this plasma
I didn’t really take it seriously because I had no suffering, but my platelet count was down to 2,000. I was bruising all over. I was bleeding out. That Thursday I had six birdies and shot 4-under, and I was airlifted six hours later. STEVE HERZOG, on a rare blood disorder that put him in the hospital for eight days during last year’s Resorters
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Al Edenloff / Echo Press
Alexandria’s Steve Herzog tries to will his putt to the cup during a Thursday round in the 2018 Resorters. Herzog shot 4-under during his final round of last year’s tournament and then was rushed to Sanford Medical Center in Fargo with a life-threatening, rare blood disorder. He is back at this year’s Resorters and was the qualifying-round medalist in the Senior Division with an even-par 72 on Monday.
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