It hasn’t been the easiest of rides for professional golfer Jeff Overton. The Indiana University graduate overcame a life-threatening spinal infection and competed in the Big 3M Open on Thursday per Brentley Romine of golfchannel.com.

The infection came after he had some surgery to repair a herniated disk. After the hospital released him, he didn’t pick up a club for about 2 years. It wasn’t until about 8 weeks ago that he felt like he could compete at PGA Tour events. He shot 6 over par in Round 1 of the Big 3M Open on Thursday.

“About six, eight weeks ago I was able to walk 72 holes at Valhalla and figured when I got around pretty close to par for four days on a very good golf course, I was like, you know what, I think I’m going to try and play some golf this year,” said Overton, who played a Monday qualifier for the John Deere Classic a few weeks ago.”

Overton stated that it’s hard to describe the feeling of getting back on the golf course. However, he is happy that was able to come back on the other side and continue doing what he loves.

“It’s hard to exactly describe whenever you’ve experienced so much pain and whenever you’ve really just haven’t been able to do what you feel like you want to do,” Overton said, “but you know, I’m back out here getting to do what I want to do.”

You can watch the rest of the Big 3M Open on ESPN+ from July 22-24.