Get ready for a wave of “Let’s go, Gilly!” cheers this week at the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas.
That’s the nickname of Ian Gilligan, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Florida who won the Southern Highlands Invitational in February to earn a berth in the PGA Tour field this week at TPC Summerlin.
Gilligan shot 8-under 208 to win the event, beating Oklahoma’s Jase Summy by one shot for his first college victory since transferring from Long Beach State, where he earned second-team All-America honors as a sophomore. In August, Gilligan won the prestigious Western Amateur, claiming the title after surviving a grueling 11-hole playoff against one of his college teammates. That was nothing for Gilligan compared to surviving a rare form of lymphoma, one that only 20 kids worldwide had, after being diagnosed at age 15.
“The whole time you’re thinking, ‘Is my child going to survive?’” Gilligan’s father, Grant, told the PGA Tour.com “He was wasting away. 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.’”
Gilligan received chemo for seven months during which time his budding golf game was placed on the backburner.
“He was smiling through it,” Ethan Schloss, a teammate of Gilligan’s on the Galena High golf team, told NCGA Golf Magazine. “Even when I saw him in the hospital, he was smiling. He had a really good attitude through everything.”
Gilligan’s first golf swings were made with a kitchen spoon in the family’s San Francisco apartment. Returning to the course and the game that he loves was good for his soul.
“Felt like I was just a normal kid again and having fun,” he said during a pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday.
A year later, in 2019, the product of the Junior Tour of Northern California competed in a Korn Ferry Tour event. His family moved to Nevada so he could focus on his game and have better access to courses, and he became the 2021 Nevada Golfer of the Year.
Gilligan visits an oncologist once a year for blood work and an MRI and has passed the five-year window during which the likelihood of a cancer relapse is greatest. He still sports a Livestrong bracelet and will wear the logo on his golf shirt this week.
“I’ve had a lot of people reach out about like they’re going through something similar to what I had,” said Gilligan, noting he’s been contacted often via Instagram. “I know what they’re going through. It’s always nice to help other people and give them some reassurance or tell them what to expect.”
Gilligan already got a taste of playing in the big leagues in July and proved his game is Tour-ready – or at least trending that way. Gilligan received a sponsor invitation to the Tour’s Barracuda Championship in Truckee, California, about 40 miles outside of his adopted hometown. With his high school teammates cheering him on, Gilligan made the 36-hole and finished T-40. This week in Las Vegas, he’ll be an inspiration to the kids at the Shriners Children’s Hospitals, a network of non-profit hospitals and pediatric healthcare systems for orthopedic, spine, burn and other specialty care. He’s in the field on another sponsor exemption, having earned it the hard way and knowing his performance could be a boost to his PGA Tour U ranking.
“To earn it is definitely a little different,” Gilligan said of the college victory to secure his spot in the field. “Feels really good.”
