Friends, family give Klauk
support in fight against epilepsy

Sam Greenwood/Getty imaGeS

The night before his brain surgery, Jeff Klauk went to a Van Halen concert in Atlanta. Photos of the stage went out over Twitter, and Bubba Watson joined the xchanges by well-wishers. Well before the encore,
though, Klauk and his wife, Shanna, were back at a friend’s
house awaiting a nine-hour procedure April 20 at Emory
University Hospital. “We’re ready for this to be over,” Shanna
said. “But we’ve kind of just started the marathon.”
Jeff Klauk has epilepsy. The initial surgery was to insert
108 electrodes into his brain to detect electrical spikes that
cause his accompanying seizures. This procedure was the
first step in a process that potentially could cure the
34-year-old and have him back playing the PGA Tour later
this year. “This guy is all about getting healthy so
he can get back to doing his business,” said close
friend and swing instructor Cody Barden.

In the days after the surgery, Klauk was tethered
to a computer with a 25-foot cable until he had five
seizures the neurosurgeons could record, allowing
them to identify within one millimeter where the
spike occurred. A second surgery is then planned to
take out damaged tissue and parts of the brain that
cause the seizures. “I call him Rapunzel,” said
Shanna from her husband’s bedside. “He’s got this
long strand of wires connected to his head and
connected to a computer. It was amazing to watch
the techs put it all together.”
Although they only last 20 seconds, these seizures
can be violent. Shanna has seen them since the
beginning—the first “grand mal” occurring in 2006.
“He had a seizure at 7 o’clock this morning,” Barden
said a day after the surgery. “He was throwing up
the anesthesia, was very agitated. It was as bad as
he’s ever had. There were convulsions, moaning and
groaning. It was very hard to watch. Shanna first
comment was, ‘One down, four to go.’ ”
Afterward she learned this seizure was a
byproduct of the grueling surgery, and the count
wouldn’t start for another few days, when Jeff would be
taken off Ativan and his sleeping hours were limited to trigger
others. Fred and Peggy Klauk had never seen the afteraffects
of their son’s seizures and were shaken. “I told Fred, ‘Remem-
ber, he’s not going to know any of this happened,’ ” Barden
said. “Fred said, ‘I’m glad he won’t, but we will.’ ”
Jeff Klauk met Barden and Shanna at the TPC Sawgrass,
where Fred was the golf course superintendent. Barden came
along first as a young assistant pro in 1991. Shanna had taken a
summer job in the pro shop in 1996 when Jeff, who worked the
Players filling divots, carrying standards and mowing grass,
introduced himself. That fall he was heading to Florida
Southern, the school of tour pros Lee Janzen, Rocco Mediate
and Marco Dawson, and where Shanna had already won one
of her two NCAA Division II titles. Shanna eventually gave
him her phone number. Four years later Jeff won his own
national championship by seven strokes. They married in
2001 and have two children, Jackson, 7 and Bridget, 3.
As a rookie in 2009, Klauk made $1.24 million, finishing
T- 14 at the Players. Since then, the seizures have increased
and so have the missed cuts. His driver’s license
was taken away 18 months ago, and he took a
major medical extension late last year. If all goes
well, he hopes to play in five allotted Nationwide
Tour events later this summer. When he returns to
the big tour, Klauk will have eight events to earn

$578,937.

Being able to drive his children to school would also be nice. For now, he can only get behind the wheel of a golf cart around the Palencia community in St. Augustine, Fla.

“We’ve crossed the hurdle of being here,” Shanna said. “If things turn out right, there is a way he could live a seizure-free life. That’s the goal. If not, I still feel like he could play a life of golf.” n