{"id":338463,"date":"2023-10-13T19:18:03","date_gmt":"2023-10-13T19:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=338463"},"modified":"2023-10-13T20:01:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-13T20:01:24","slug":"cancer-survivors-shock-win-sets-up-fairytale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=338463","title":{"rendered":"Cancer survivor's shock win sets up 'fairytale'"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 49-year-old Brisbane businessman who beat cancer is heading to the USA to take on golf's biggest hitters in the World Long Drive Championship.<\/p>\n

Jason Atkins scored a shock win at the Australian titles last week, beating players half his age.<\/p>\n

A part-time golfer who has overcome mouth cancer and a dislocated back in recent years, his story ranks as a national sporting fairytale.<\/p>\n

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\"Jason<\/p>\n

\ufeff"I was never even a golfer – about 15 years ago I bought a house on a golf course and it came with free membership for the club," Atkins told Wide World of Sports.<\/p>\n

"So I thought, 'What the hell – I'll give it a go'.<\/p>\n

"I found I could hit the ball pretty straight and hard so entered a long ball event and did well\u2026 and it's all come from there."<\/p>\n

Atkins, who boasts a career longest shot of a mammoth 407 metres, was getting good results in long ball competitions but his career looked over following a nightmare year in 2015.<\/p>\n

"I dislocated my back – basically because I didn't look after my body – and then found I had mouth cancer," he said.<\/p>\n

"They had to cut out two-thirds of my lip and chin. It was pretty scary.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CxkcAgVL7uc\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp<\/a><\/p>\n

"I took a long break from the game but now I'm back."<\/p>\n

Atkins credits much of his success to former Dragons rugby league grand final prop Tony Priddle – now a 'mind coach'.<\/p>\n

"Tony is my personal trainer – he got me into the mental side of things," he said.<\/p>\n

"A lot of players can hit more or less the same distance – but it's the one percenters [that get you wins]. Tony has taught me [what] to use in my head [and] that makes a difference.<\/p>\n

"He has enabled me to switch into the zone on call and gets me to perform at my peak.<\/p>\n

"I love the game and lookout America – here I come."\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 49-year-old Brisbane businessman who beat cancer is heading to the USA to take on golf's biggest hitters in the World Long Drive Championship. Jason […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":338465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338463"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=338463"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":338466,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338463\/revisions\/338466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/338465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=338463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=338463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=338463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}