Australian golfer Jarrod Lyle has recorded an emotional thank you message to supporters after making a heartbreaking call to enter palliative care following a third cancer battle.
In a 90-second audio clip, the 36-year-old confessed he's been overwhelmed at the outpouring of goodwill across the globe after announcing the tragic news on Wednesday.
"I feel like I'm the luckiest golfer going around because so many people took an interest in me and took an interest in, I guess, my fight," Lyle told the Inside The Ropes podcast.
The abundance of support over the years has been an uplifting force, he said.
"To have so many friends around the world, whether they're spectators, whether they're golfers, whether they're marshals, whatever - to have that kind of support to go to every tournament is a great feeling," he added while breathing heavily.
"It's going to be hard to leave that behind, but they know that I love them.
"They know that all the fighting that I did do was to get back out and play golf again."
Despite his struggle, Lyle feels fortunate to still have his family, friends and fans backing him.
"It's going to be hard but, at some point, it's going to happen and they'll get on with their lives," he said.
"I just feel very, very lucky."
Lyle suffered a recurrence of acute myeloid leukaemia in 2017, and his condition has deteriorated in recent months.
Wife Briony took to Lyle's social media page to reveal he had "reached his limit" as doctors agreed they could "no longer strive for a positive outcome".
"He has given everything that he's got to give, and his poor body cannot take any more," the Facebook post read, alongside a photo of Lyle clutching his young daughter in a hospital bed.
"We'll be taking him closer to home in the next couple of days so he can finally leave the hospital."
Lyle courageously beat cancer in 1998 and 2012 and returned to play professional golf, making an emotional comeback to the course during the 2013 Australian Masters.
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