For as long as he could remember, Kyle Martin had dreamt of competing on the PGA Tour. But as the 28-year-old journeyman sat slumped in a hospital bed in late 2019, the siren song of competitive golf had never seemed farther away.
Martin, who had enjoyed some self-made college success and played professionally in Latin America for a spell, was locked in a nearly year-long duel with testicular cancer, forced to endure rounds of chemotherapy, invasive surgery and confrontations with his own mortality. His strength sapped by the disease, he could barely stand, let alone think about swinging a golf club – the one motion that had come to define most of his life.
“It took everything I had just to get out of bed and walk 20 feet to the couch,” Martin remembered.
At this dark juncture, Martin could scarcely imagine the success that still lay ahead of him as a reinstated amateur. In a little more than three years he would win a tournament, and in a little more than five would capture his first Florida state title. Competing favorably with the nation’s top mid-amateurs would have been hard to picture from the operating table. His re-emergence after battling cancer is a testament to the grit that has propelled him throughout his career.
“You really don’t know how to react – you just sit there say, like, this could be it. Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve worked for, I mean it could be over.”
kyle martin
Born in Plant City, Florida, Martin took to golf early and well. From swinging in his grandparents’ yard at age 2, he eventually enjoyed consistent success in the state’s robust junior ranks. Martin’s accolades helped secure him a scholarship to Brevard Community College (now Eastern Florida State College) in Cocoa Beach. Even before he struck his first ball in college, his future aim was already set.
“The PGA Tour was the goal,” Martin said. “It’s all I wanted to do for pretty much my whole life.”
Martin distinguished himself with a relentless work ethic. After two years he transferred to Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida, qualifying for the 2013 U.S. Amateur and posting solid finishes at consecutive NAIA national championships. He also met his future wife, Maria Andrea Martin, while at SEU. A native Colombian who played for the university women’s team, she observed the compounding effort it took as Martin pursued success at higher levels.
“It was always Kyle’s big dream to be a professional golfer,” Andrea said. “He’s always been really diligent and focused on what he wants.”
Martin’s persistence paid dividends. He secured status on the PGA Tour Latinoamérica (now PGA Tour Americas) soon after his 2014 graduation. In his first few starts he encountered Ty Capps, a former University of Nebraska player who would later join Martin on the Florida mid-amateur golf scene. Capps remembers Martin’s quiet aura and secluded nature during his early days as a pro.
“It’s hard to compete when you don’t have much money. I would be so tense. … I couldn’t figure out how to relax. I put so much pressure on myself to perform well.”
Kyle Martin
“He was always pretty stoic,” Capps said. “He’s kind of got that David Duval personality where you want to know what’s underneath the glasses.”
Behind the shades was a young professional hamstrung by his own desire and his financial circumstances. Martin struggled to adapt to the unique pressure that came with playing for his livelihood. It was as if he wanted to succeed too much.
“It’s hard to compete when you don’t have much money,” Martin reflected. “I would be so tense. … I couldn’t figure out how to relax. I put so much pressure on myself to perform well.”
With a little help from Andrea’s extended family in Latin America, he carved out a modest living but never attained the success he was after. He kept grinding until 2019, when a strange, nagging feeling prompted him to return to Florida and seek alternative employment.
“I didn’t want to quit playing, but I got this feeling something was about to happen,” Martin recalled. “It was like something was kind of pushing me to start working.”
The pull to return might have helped save his life. Barely a few months after he began a new career with the Publix supermarket chain, he received a diagnosis of testicular cancer.
“You really don’t know how to react – you just sit there say, like, this could be it,” Martin said. “Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve worked for, I mean it could be over.”
A rapidly scheduled surgery led to hope of an early remission, but that optimism was crushed when the disease returned more aggressively. Staring down nature’s most harrowing barrel, Martin plunged into the traumatic limbo of advanced cancer treatment. Understandably, golf took a back seat.
“It was a really hard time to see someone so committed to golf not be able to practice and be out there,” Andrea said. “But he was so positive about it. … What he kept saying was everything happens for a reason, and maybe he needed a step back.”
His life upturned, Martin reassessed his worldview in a way only a brush with the beyond can prompt. He blocked out self-pity and doubt. Instead, Martin chose to internalize his experience as ammunition to better himself once he emerged from treatment.
Kyle Martin with his mom, Karen Spivey, after his last cancer treatment in 2020.
“I had a feeling that something, somebody was there with me the whole time,” said Martin. “Someone’s trying to teach me something here.”
Martin was declared cancer-free in late January 2020. As he recouped his strength and steadily returned to the course, Martin noticed something – for the first time, he was playing loose. The tension that had seemed inescapable during his professional career was now nonexistent. The battle with cancer had bestowed him with two qualities he had previously lacked: patience and proper priority. His mental game, the thing that had held him back for so many years, was completely renovated.
“Golf is not a life-and-death thing anymore,” Martin explained. “Now I understand what playing free means, what playing without tension means.”
If that weren’t enough, the grit needed to persevere through treatment only reinforced Martin’s ability to grind when faced with hardship on the course.
“If I can get through that, I can get through anything,” he said.
Martin regained his amateur status and, after a brief delay courtesy of COVID-19, jumped back into competition. He won the 2023 Next Tee Invitational at Innisbrook Resort’s Island Course, a victory he attributed to his newly forged mental perspective, and brought fairly modest expectations into the 2025 Florida State Golf Association Mid-Amateur Championship last May.
He breezed through the qualifying round and, despite having struggled previously in match play, won his first two matches.
“I felt more relaxed that week than I ever had,” Martin said. “I don’t think one time I put any pressure on myself to make a putt or hit a shot.”
Kyle Martin after winning the 2025 Florida State Golf Association Mid-Amateur Championship
A gutsy comeback from 3 down in the quarterfinals and a 5-and-4 victory in the semifinals set up a championship match against Capps, whom he had looked up to in his early years as a professional.
The two PGA Tour Latinoamérica alumni produced arguably the best match of the tournament in windswept Vero Beach. Martin took control with four birdies on the back nine, but Capps responded with a miraculous cart-path chip-in on No. 15 to keep his chances alive. Untethered from expectations and the tension that had so racked him in the past, Martin casually drained a 40-footer on the next hole to close the match, 3 and 2.
“It was kind of a ‘what just happened?’ moment,” Martin said. “Seeing my name on that trophy … it’s hard to describe.”
Martin has made it a goal to become a fixture on the national mid-amateur scene. Contending in USGA championships and earning starts in majors are not out of the question. After staring death in the face, anything seems possible.
“I’m gonna try to go as far as I can with it,” he said.
Top: Kyle Martin with his wife, Maria Andrea Martin, at the 2026 Gasparilla Invitational
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY KYLE MARTIN
