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Jan 15th, 2018
Blayne Barber's caddie in critical condition
Asks nurse to pray for him
Words: Tim Southwell
Blayne Barber's caddie, Cody Gilmer, remains hospitalized in Honolulu, and asked a nurse to "pray for him" after collapsing at a restaurant on Saturday.
Gilmer was in critical condition after suffering swelling after falling on his head, and was still unresponsive when Barber left the hospital for his third round.
"He's in neurological ICU. A lot of bleeding and swelling in his brain," Barber said. "So I went by this morning. That was the last update I had. He's in pretty critical conditions. His parents are flying in tomorrow."
It's not certain what caused Gimer to collapse. A trauma doctor in the emergency room said the staff was trying to control the swelling and bleeding without surgery.
In a bizarre twist on Saturday morning, Barber was at the hospital looking for the intensive care unit at the hospital Saturday morning when he received the push alert on his phone that a ballistic missile was headed for Hawaii and to seek shelter because it was not a drill. The alert turned out not to be genuine but Hawaiians, and the PGA tour players about to start the third round of the Sony Hawaii Open, spent a terrifying period trying to come to terms with the impending missile strike before discovering the mistake.
"I slept about three hours," Barber said. "That was about the hardest day of golf I've ever played, between that and the texts this morning. I'm pretty exhausted."
Barber bogeyed three of his last four holes, shooting a 72 to end up 15 shots back of the lead.
"Between that happening to Cory and then just the emotions of facing your own mortality in that moment, it's just been a heavy day, for sure," Barber said. "It's good to face those things sometimes, but yeah, it certainly wiped me out. I was kind of out of it all day, just trying to push through and have something to concentrate on. but it was hard to focus on any of that."
He spent a few minutes practicing and then was headed back to the hospital after his round on Saturday,
