Scott McCarron reveals cancer diagnosis, plays through treatment

“So, you start thinking, ‘How? Why? Why me?’ Those types of things, and then, then trying to put a team together to find out, ‘How can we beat this? Is it curable?’” McCarron said in the social media video. “Those are the things that are really going through your head and then after you do that PET scan, you don't know if it's spread throughout your whole body and that was probably the scariest thing.”

“It was just like a little white thing,” McCarron told Golfweek. “But the little white spot was becoming larger, the size of an eraser, and was blocking my esophagus and making it hard to swallow and really sore. So, it was a fast-acting cancer.”

On the social post, he said, “If I would have waited six months, it would not have been a good outcome for me, from what my doctors say. So, early detection is the key for any of the cancers.”

Last week, he began chemotherapy treatment in Atlanta, which lasted six hours on both Monday and Tuesday. He still played in the Mitsubishi Electric Championship, finishing T-50, and intends to play this week in Alabama at the Regions Tradition, a major on the Champions Tour.

“It's kind of a good distraction for me to be on the golf course. I'm not thinking about, you know, the other stuff,” he said. “Everything kind of takes a back seat when you're going through all this stuff.”

McCarron noted that he and his wife have been so preoccupied with his cancer diagnosis that they nearly forgot their 10th wedding anniversary, which they celebrated last week. But McCarron has shown resilience before on the golf course, and he’s a fighter, and thanks to the likes of Stewart Cink and Jerry Kelly, among others of his fellow competitors, he’s getting the best help possible and digging in for a fight.

“You get a diagnosis like this and you want to beat it and you want to come back and win again,” McCarron said. “So, it's kind of motivating me to get back in the winner's circle. That's my plan and giving me a little bit more incentive to come back and to show people that you can beat these cancers and come back even stronger.”

Senior writer Adam Schupak covers the PGA Tour for Golfweek.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: PGA Tour Champions' Scott McCarron diagnosed with lymphoma, plays golf