Justin Rose's caddie Mark Fulcher 'incredibly grateful' after successful heart surgery

Seven weeks ago, Mark Fulcher was in a hospital bed in Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, recovering from surgery to repair the mitral valve in his heart.

Dr. David Adams -- the noted cardiothoracic surgeon and a “massive” golf fan, his grateful patient says – had sawed through Fulcher’s sternum and opened up his chest. He was put on a heart-lung machine while the valve, which regulates the flow of blood from the lung to the left ventricle, was repaired.

“You wake up and the heart is in better shape than the sternum,” Fulcher said by telephone this week from his Palm Beach Gardens home. “So obviously, lifting bags and such, you know, it's still quite painful. it should be almost completely repaired now.

“It's just a question of trusting it a little bit.”

Lifting bags and such just happens to be Fulcher’s business, though. Fooch, as he is known in the golf business, has caddied for reigning FedExCup champion Justin Rose for more than a decade.

The condition was discovered after Fulcher fell ill and had to bow out after 13 holes during the pro-am at the BNI Indonesian Masters in December in Jakarta. At the time, he figured it was a combination of jet lag and the heat, which was tipping toward 100 degrees.

Fulcher ended up in the hospital at the urging of his girlfriend and Rose’s wife Kate. Doctors there weren’t quite sure what the problem was. At the time, “most of it cleared out quite nicely,” he said, although he was unable to caddy the rest of the week.

It wasn’t until Fulcher returned to the United States and underwent further tests that doctors found the issue with his mitral valve.

“So the long and short of it, I was very, very grateful to find it and for the friends who helped me getting into surgery,” Fulcher said. “It was just remarkable. I'm incredibly grateful.”

He was given the go-ahead to start rehab last week. He’s been lifting 5- and 10-pound weights and trying to build his stamina. In a few weeks, doctors want him to start walking around the cul-de-sac in his neighborhood, carrying one of Rose’s bags.

“I'm going to try the bag and then I'm going to try the clubs and then I'm going to try with waterproofs and then I'm going to try with umbrellas,” Fulcher said with a chuckle.

“My intended progress is a pencil bag all the way through to a Rosey staff bag, an Olympic bag and a Ryder Cup bag that's got waterproofs and food and what have you.”

The goal is to rejoin Rose as soon as possible – but not until he is “101 percent,” Fulcher said. In the meantime, Gareth Lord, who used to caddie for Rose’s good friend Henrik Stenson, is filling in. The two won the Farmers Insurance Open last month.

Fulcher, who spent time with Rose and his team in the Bahamas last week, was watching on TV as his boss walked triumphantly down the 18th fairway, looked into the camera and said “Fooch, that was for you, mate.”

His long-time caddie couldn’t have been more touched.

“It was a great feeling to see him win,” Fulcher says. “I hope in a way that my situation inspired him a little bit. It was an incredible position to be in.

“To have a boss who at that moment was able to think about someone else and to have the spontenaity to say ‘This one's for you.’ I was very grateful.

“Did it surprise me? No. Because he's a fantastic man and a fantastic friend.”