PGA Tour player blog: This victory is for my dying best friend, says South African golfer Erik van Rooyen

To be honest, I don’t really know where to start. I was quite numb after that eagle putt went in on 18 and you imagine yourself being full of euphoria and being ecstatic, but I was just numb.

It’s because of everything that’s happened with my friend, Jon Trasamar, being so sick. I guess the moment (winning the World Wide Technology Championship) hasn’t hit me yet.

I was calm during the final round because there is bigger stuff in life than golf. If you look at my ball, there’re music notes on there and “J.T.” written on it and it’s for my best friend. He’s got melanoma and he’s not going to make it.

Every shot out there was for him. When you’re playing for something bigger than winning some trophy, it puts things into perspective.

The emotions got to me after the second round. I’d shot eight under, I get back to my room and I just break down in tears.

It wasn’t that calm all the time but, when I step onto the golf course, I’ve got a job to do. Until the last putt, it was all focus and doing it for Jon.

We love him so much and I’m still in disbelief at what he’s going through. I wish I could take all his pain away. We’re flying up to Minnesota to see him and we’ll give him a high five.

When I left South Africa for the United States as a 19-year-old, it wasn’t easy as I grew up in a really small town.

Jon and his family lived about two hours away from Minneapolis, and I arrived in Minnesota in September 2009 and they were there at the airport to meet me, because he was going to be my roommate and teammate at University of Minnesota soon after.

I still think he’s got one of the best short games I’ve ever seen and he pursued a career in golf up until recently.

Jon was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma about a year ago. He was clean in April when he gave me a call and sent a picture of the scan and he was free of cancer.

Soon after, it came back. On Tuesday, he sent us a text, saying he’s got six to 10 weeks left. They did a bunch of scans and cancer was in all his organs, everywhere.

I hope he was watching the final round. We’ve texted and I’ve told him how much I love him. All I want is to go play nine holes with him somewhere.

And extremely selfishly, that puts all of these into perspective. I’ve been playing golf since I was eight, extremely competitive and we want to win. But it doesn’t matter.

When I kick the bucket one day... I’m going to be thinking about the people I love the most and Jon is one of those people.

It’s been a trying year up until about two months ago when it came to my golf. It’s been the worst year of my career to date.

I was struggling and made a coaching change. I started working with Sean Foley the week of the US Open and started turning things around. I wasn’t hitting it that bad when I started working with him, but I wasn’t getting great results.

At one point, I missed 10 cuts in a row. What makes Sean so great is, he’s got this awesome knowledge about the golf swing and the human body, and how the body functions and how to get the club square on the ball, but just perspective.

We talk about life and the person you want to be, how you want to be on the golf course.

It’s also quite special to win on a golf course designed by Tiger Woods. I saw Tiger earlier in the week... and to win a PGA Tour tournament that is somehow in a small part linked to him, it’s extremely special.

Fans can watch the PGA Tour and this week’s Bermuda Championship on Mola TV.