Why this four-time open-heart surgery survivor will be teeing it up at Kapalua

It’s a bygone memory for the rosy-cheeked 11-year-old, but a little over ten years ago, Madelyn Quinn sat in a surgery room at Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital awaiting a new heart.

Next month, thanks to the Round of a Lifetime (ROAL) Foundation, Maddie — joined by her father Greg, mother Alyson, and brother Andrew — will be at Kapalua awaiting her tee time on The Plantation Course.

“She was intubated and had tubes coming in and out of everywhere,” Greg Quinn recalls of the day after his daughter’s heart transplant, Maddie’s fourth open heart surgery before the age of 2. “But [Alyson and I] said ‘That doesn’t look like our daughter. That girl has rosy cheeks.’ When you touched her, she was warm.”

Come her tee time on April 5, both should be true again.

“I usually light up when I get on the golf course,” Maddie said before glancing tentatively at her dad. “When I’m doing well,” she adds.

Maddie is the perfect fit for the Round of a Lifetime, a foundation established in 2010 to preserve the memory of Andrew Maciey, who passed away from a congenital heart defect at the age of 24. The foundation provides opportunities for those suffering from congenital heart disease and their loved ones to play an unforgettable round of golf at a world-class course, all expenses paid.

Maddie, who came to ROAL’s attention when she was featured in a CBS Mornings spotlight after Tiger Woods signed her bucket list poster at the 2023 Genesis Invitational, is the foundation’s 20th recipient.

“We have a great mix of hardcore golfers who want to knock off a top 20 course in the country and more recreational players who just want an experience with their family,” Dan Igo, ROAL’s director of content and Maciey’s former fraternity brother at the University of Maryland, says.

Maddie, an avid golfer who competes in the US Kids World Championship each year, found in Kapalua both a top-ranked course and a full-family experience.

“Since my family’s been so involved with my journey, I think Kapalua will be fun because I’ve had good memories in Hawaii with my family,” says Maddie, who was born with ventricular septal defect (VSD).

“A lot of times people can live their whole life with them without complications,” Greg says of VSD, a hole in the heart which often closes on its own. “But the proximity was so close to her aortic valve.”

Maddie underwent her first open heart surgery at six months old to remove the valve, close the hole, and reattach the valve. But she developed heart block and needed two more open heart surgeries before the second pacemaker finally worked.

That, unfortunately, was not the end.

“Her heart kept getting larger and larger and trying to pump harder and harder, and she was basically in heart failure,” Greg says. In November of 2014, at the age of one-and-a-half, Maddie was listed for heart transplant. A call came on March 4, 2015, informing Greg that the doctors had found a donor, and Maddie received the transplant the following day.

Ever since then, Maddie has been playing golf.

“I had a plastic club in my hand when I was 2, and I’ve been swinging the club ever since,” Maddie says. “It's always been my favorite sport, and I've always seen my dad and been like, ‘Wow, he's such a good golfer. I want to be like him one day.’”

Maddie paused before adding one last thing: “I've beaten him sometimes.”

Greg, who at 23 was the head golf professional at The Club at Ruby Hill in Pleasanton, CA, started his career in golf before moving into sales and finding a niche in molecular diagnostics, or biotech.

“I do think for my wife and I, golf's kind of a dream sport, because we do have that added sensitivity to just protecting it a little bit,” Greg says, even though doctors have reassured him that Maddie’s heart is “no different than anyone else’s.”

As a golf pro, Greg says that his favorite thing was teaching juniors. Now, serving as Maddie’s coach and caddie, he does just that with his daughter, while also being able to play as a family.

Maddie’s life, in other words, has become by most measures normal—except, that is, for the tri-monthly doctor visits.

“The lows are definitely the biopsies and the needles,” Maddie says; then she corrects herself.

“I’m used to the needles. But the biopsies really aren’t the funnest,” Mays says, before elaborating on the various ways they’re performed. It is that very same pain, though, that increases Maddie’s appreciation for golf.

In a junior game that is becoming more and more competitive and intense, Greg says her daughter has done a good job recognizing what is important.

“She’s like, ‘This is a game. This is fun for us,’” Greg says. “‘They’re not winning a green jacket out there.’”

“It’s perspective from what we’ve been through,” Greg says. “If we’re having a bad day out here on a golf course, we’re at the wrong place. No matter what you shoot, no matter how bad your game is, there's much worse places we could be.”

Especially next week at Kapalua.