Cancer survivor Ian Gilligan tees up at Shriners Children’s Open with unparalleled perspective

Editor's note: This article was written Wednesday, Oct. 20, ahead of the Shriners Children's Open where Ian Gilligan would make the cut by one stroke. Gilligan would go on to finish in the top 20, shooting 66-65 on the weekend.

"Then this weekend I just hit the ball really good," Gilligan said on Sunday. Never felt too stressed, especially today. I was hitting fairways and greens and had a ton of looks. Golf feels pretty easy when you're in the fairway and hitting greens."

Gilligan carded 42 straight holes without a bogey on his way to his highest finish in a PGA TOUR event.

LAS VEGAS – Each year the Shriners Children’s Open brings a heavy dose of perspective.

Ian Gilligan of Reno, Nevada, will tee off at TPC Summerlin on Thursday with perhaps more perspective than anyone in the entire 132-man field. And he’s only 21.

A senior at the University of Florida, Gilligan won the 2024 Western Amateur and earned second-team All-American honors last season. He returns this week to his home state to make just his second career PGA TOUR start (Barracuda Championship, T40).

At age 15, Gilligan was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of cancer. He said he was preparing before a junior tournament one day when he felt something strange.

“I kind of noticed something was weird was just kind of stretching for a tournament, and I just felt like I lost mobility in a stretch,” Gilligan told the PGA TOUR earlier this season. “I was like, That’s kind of weird. I didn’t really think too much of it.”

Over the next month, dead skin began to fall off the inside of his left arm, while the uncomfortable feeling remained.

“We went to the hospital, and we thought it was just kind of a cyst,” he said. “It turned out there was basically an empty hole in there, and they took a biopsy of some of the cells and found they were cancerous.”

But it was a rare form of cancer; Gilligan’s case was one of just 20 worldwide.

“The whole time you're thinking, 'Is my child going to survive?'” Gilligan’s father, Grant, told the PGA TOUR. “What he had was massively rare, so they wouldn't start treatment forever it seemed like.”

Gilligan was unable to play golf for around six weeks due to worsening symptoms, while his condition deteriorated rapidly. Doctors, meanwhile, were deciding how to treat him.

“He was wasting away,” Grant said. “He was down to his lowest weight. I mean, he looked like someone horribly anorexic. There was a time I sat down with the doctor, and I broke down and I said, ‘You have to start treatment now.’”

Even now, years later, Grant believes he has some form of PTSD, so traumatic was the experience.

“I feel like they tried to hide it very well,” Gilligan told PGATOUR.COM. “I know they were super emotional. Seeing my mom crying was just terrible. My parents have been there for me for everything. I wouldn’t wish any parent to go through that.”

Finally, doctors at the Stanford Cancer Institute came up with a plan. With such a rare form of the disease, they would only have one shot at a potential cure, and their highly individuated course of action would bring an estimated 85% chance of survival. Gilligan began chemotherapy.

Within days, the treatment showed strong signs of success.

“Kind of right when I started my chemotherapy after the first week it was almost fully healed, like right away,” Gilligan said.

Whereas many are debilitated by the harsh process of chemo, Gilligan said his pain was gone just a week after beginning treatment. It wasn’t long before he was able to start swinging a club again.

“That was huge, just because I was able to be outside of my friends, which was nice take my mind off things,” he said. “It was a little weird for my friends. At times I could tell they wanted to know what I was going through, but just being with them and feeling like I was back to normal when we would go and play was so important for me at that time.”

After seven months of treatment, Gilligan was declared cancer-free.

Just three months after that, he was back competing in tournaments once again. In 2021, Gilligan was named the Nevada High School Golfer of the Year.

After starting his college career at Long Beach State, Gilligan entered the transfer portal in 2023 and trekked cross country to join the National Championship-winning Gators. He played in every event for Florida in 2024 and was named SEC Golfer of the Week three times.

He has shown no signs of recurrence since his initial treatment.

Now, through a sponsor exemption from the Shriners Children’s Open, Gilligan – who also qualified for this week’s tournament via his win in the Southern Highlands Collegiate – will tee off on the PGA TOUR to share his story and his talents on the biggest stage. What differentiates him from the rest of the field is his perspective, standing over the ball or walking down the fairway.

“It's easy to take stuff for granted,” he said. “So having the reminder of what I went through, and knowing that people are going through even worse stuff, that's definitely changed my perspective.”

While everyone at TPC Summerlin will be able to see the Bermuda grass or take in the mountain vistas, Gilligan’s perspective will be through the lens of all he has been through, and how far he can still go.

“Things I've been through, it's helpful in times of when I'm playing some bad golf and not getting too down on myself,” he said. “It's just golf at the end of the day. It's not like I'm trying to fight a life-or-death battle. That's a helpful reminder out on the course.”