While Tiger Woods may have grabbed all the headlines at the Masters, the RBC Heritage has its own stunning story surrounding Morgan Hoffman as the pro played in his first tournament since 2019.
Back in 2016, the former amateur World No. 1 was diagnosed with incurable facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy which forced him off the PGA Tour. He received plenty of messages of support from the public and his fellow colleagues.
Hoffman disappeared and placed himself into exile in Nepal and Costa Rica to live off the grid after he was frustrated by the treatment prescribed to him by doctors. Instead, Hoffman tried alternative medicine therapies and took a more holistic approach as he drank his own urine for 10 days, indulged in hallucinogenic drugs and ate nothing but hundreds of grapes a day while he was supported by wife Chelsea.
Hoffman began to lose muscle mass in his chest before his diagnosis, but he thought little of it as it was a painless process. However, his swing began to weaken, and after originally being misdiagnosed with a trapped nerve, he was finally diagnosed with the disease - and he was frustrated with the doctor’s outlook.
“It was less than a five-minute call,” Hoffman told Golf Digest. “He (the doctor) says, ‘You have Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy.’ I’m like, ‘What do I do?’
“He tells me I can do some therapy, but that’s about it. It’s just going to get worse. I’m like, ‘That’s it?’ I’m like, ‘This is the dumbest s*** I’ve ever heard. F*** this,’ I said. ‘This is not how you treat people.’”
Hoffman was frustrated with the answers he was getting from the doctors, so he searched for an alternative way of dealing with his illness. The 32-year-old travelled to Nepal with Chelsea where they lived for three months - and Hoffman learned about the ancient treatment of urine therapy.
He would experiment twice a day by drinking his own pee, rubbing into his gums and body. Over the course of 10 days, Hoffman would swap out food and water to drink his own urine.
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As he searched for more cures, Hoffman visited ‘healers’ in the Nicoya Peninsula in western Costa Rica, where people allegedly live longer and healthier lives. He and his wife spent time wi Nosara and also visited Nicoya.
It was there where he sampled ayahuasca in 2019, a psychoactive cocktail that’s used as a spiritual medicine among the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin that contains the incredibly strong hallucinogen DMT. Under the guidance of a shaman, the Hoffmans drank cups of the special brew every five hours for four days - and the former golfer referred to it as a true turning point in his healing.
Hoffman now resides in a mountainside house in the jungle in Novara, Costa Rica where he lives with two dogs. Hoffman intends to play the Wells Fargo tournament in Maryland in three weeks time, where he will work to get his PGA Tour card.
