Victorian Daniel Beckmann won’t be around for the weekend of the Fortinet Australian PGA at Royal Queensland, and while he will no doubt be disappointed, the recent Q-School graduate will bounce back quickly after what he has been through.

Beckmann was a star amateur and a member of Institute of Sport squads for Victoria and Australia before turning pro and plying his trade at the ill-fated One Asia Tour.

Playing overseas for three years, Beckmann picks up the story as to how his life then took more than one terrible turn that makes his presence for two rounds at the biggest event in Australian golf for more than two years simply remarkable.

“My mum was battling cancer at the time, and she got worse and worse. One Christmas I came home and she actually passed away about three months after I got back,” Beckmann told Golf Australia magazine. “I gave up golf because I felt like I was missing out on a lot of stuff here and I actually became a real boy and got a job and all that type of stuff. Did that for about three years then I got diagnosed with cancer myself.

“I got diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called T Cell Lymphoblastic lymphoma. It’s just unlucky, its rare, they gave me 16 percent chance at the start. Chemo for about three and a half years, I was to be in hospital for two of them full time, which ended up being the case.”

RIGHT: Daniel Beckmann bounced backed from a rare form of cancer to resume golf career that saw him tee it up at the PGA this week. PHOTO: PGA Tour of Australasia.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Beckmann spent two full years in the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne and was in and out regularly for another two.

To look at his strong frame covered significantly with tattoos, you wouldn’t know that he was reduced to a frail shadow of himself by the drugs that were saving his life.

“The first two years was pretty tough, got very frail, chemo is like the worst hangover everyday of your life,” he said.

But Beckmann is one of the lucky ones.

He has been in remission for over three years now and looks forward to the five-year mark, when his doctors will officially considered “cured”.

Once given the all clear by to do so by heath professionals, Beckmann returned to golf by joining Spring Valley Golf Club in Melbourne where one of his former VIS coaches, Marty Joyce, teaches.

The disease that almost killed Beckmann also gave him the “kick in the arse” to get back to playing golf. And after two years back in the game he earned status at PGA Tour of Australasia Qualifying School to return to the day job he realised was a lot better than sitting behind a desk.

His game isn’t quite the same as it was when he was an amateur ear marked for a bright future in the pro ranks, but it remains impressive enough to “hang” with some of the big names in Australian golf. And he as bucket loads of perspective on his side.

“When you find out that you are given that small chance to live you kind of go, ‘I am living a bit on borrowed time’,” he said. “There are a lot of people not as fortunate as what I have been. Every day is a blessing, obviously playing stuff like this with this field we have and superstars playing, but every day I am just glad to wake up.”

“I go out there and nothing is a big deal. What I was going through was life and death, this is not life and death. You hit a bad shot, who cares? Am I going to die if it is in the rough? No I am not.” - Daniel Beckmann.

Even after all he has been through with his heath, the golf gods still had one or two more tests up their sleeves before he could make his way to the Sunshine State ahead of this week.

Beckmann was in a share of first at the Port Headland Pro-Am in WA in one of the first events post Tour school only to be disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard. Then came the Vic PGA and as close as you can come to missing a tee time and another disqualification.

“I stayed the first night at Moonah Links, had a 1:30pm tee time the next day, went home to Melbourne to sleep in my own bed. Got on the road about 9:15am and got stuck in the Burnley Tunnel for about three hours. I was breaking land speed records to get there and Heath McLeod from the PGA was waiting there in a cart for me and off we went, I reckon I made it by 10 seconds.”

But as you might have guessed, Beckmann took it in stride and even managed to crack a joke on his way to the tee.

“It was a Caddyshack moment and I said to Heath, ‘No time for a small bucket’.”

Make no mistake, Beckmann’s five-over total this week and missing out on sharing some of the $1 million in spoils will smart. But by the time he tees it up next week at Nudgee Golf Club and the Queensland PGA, the broad smile and bounce in his step will be back and ready to take another chance he thought he might never have.

“I go out there and nothing is a big deal. What I was going through was life and death, this is not life and death. You hit a bad shot, who cares? Am I going to die if it is in the rough? No I am not.”

Probably a lesson in that for all of us.