Weak from cancer, the popular golf pro opened a video. Tiger Woods wanted to talk.

Tuesday should have been a big day for Daniel Meggs.

It had been a week since his last chemo session, and the drugs had tapered down in his system, making him feel more like himself.

He was finally — finally — going to be back out on the golf course, guest-caddying on the first hole of a practice round at the Wells Fargo Championship with his friend of nearly 20 years, PGA tour pro Harold Varner III of Gastonia.

On Wednesday, the 29-year-old Meggs, a teaching pro and a popular fixture at TPC Piper Glen, would be hooked back up to the chemotherapy fighting his stage 4 colon cancer.

But on Tuesday, he would feel the clipped grass of the fairway under his feet, banter with Varner about which club to use, and feel the rush of being alongside his wife, Jordan Meggs, at his sport’s biggest local event

Instead, Meggs woke before dawn Tuesday morning with a high fever.

Instead of driving him to Quail Hollow Country Club, Jordan drove him to the doctor.

Varner got the news of his friend’s illness via text. Meggs was on his mind as he addressed the media less than an hour before his tee time.

The two men had made national news earlier this spring, when Varner asked Tiger Woods to record an inspirational message for Meggs - which Woods did, just days before his Masters’ win.

It was the best way Varner could think of to boost his friend’s spirits as he battled for his life.

“He (Meggs) doesn’t know it, but I like the way he carries himself through a time like this,” Varner said Tuesday. “Talking to him gives me so much, you know, excitement for life.”

And indeed, it’s how Daniel and Jordan Meggs have handled the realities of living with cancer — even through disappointments like Tuesday’s — that have inspired Varner, the community at Piper Glen and thousands of others who have followed Meggs’ story.

A stumble on the practice tee

Meggs’ diagnosis came from out of nowhere, and at a devastating time. Two weeks before his and Jordan’s May 2017 wedding, he was giving a golf lesson to a radiologist at Piper Glen when he stumbled and fell.

The radiologist felt Meggs’ abdomen. He phoned a fellow physician friend and within days, Meggs was scheduled for a colonoscopy.

He’d had blood in his stool and stomach pains that had seemed severe in the weeks and months prior, but he’d chalked it up to an unhealthy diet of too much fast-food eaten during busy weeks at the golf course.

It’s probably Crohn’s disease, or irritable bowel syndrome, he and Jordan figured. Jordan was scheduled to have her bridal portraits taken on the morning of the colonoscopy — they’d been rained out a few weeks earlier and the wedding was fast approaching — so they agreed that Meggs’ dad would take him to the procedure.

Daniel Meggs awoke from the procedure to crushing news: colon cancer.

His dad cried. “If I could take it from you, I would,” he told his son.

Jordan, who fell in love with Daniel when the two attended Butler High School and then maintained a long-distance relationship when Meggs went to Wake Forest University and she went to N.C. State, had an anxious feeling on the way home from the photo shoot at the Duke Mansion.

She and her mom had planned on a mother-daughter afternoon following the portraits, followed by a session of honeymoon planning with Daniel. But Jordan and her mom hustled home, uneasy from a text from Daniel: When will you be home?

When Jordan walked through the door and saw both of Daniel’s parents sitting with their son, she knew something was wrong.

He took her into his arms beside their kitchen table, and broke the news. A golf-ball sized tumor. Cancer.

They both sobbed.

“You don’t have to marry me,” he told her.

“You’re crazy,” she replied.

Two days later, scans revealed that the cancer was stage 4. It had spread to Daniel’s liver.

The two were married June 3, 11 days after Daniel Meggs’ first chemotherapy session. They asked the 360 people in attendance not to talk about cancer.

Everyone obliged. But when Daniel Meggs began sobbing during the couple’s first dance at Charlotte City Club, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

Chemo instead of a honeymoon

Instead of a honeymoon, Daniel started another round of chemo. He and Jordan banked his sperm to keep open the possibility of one day starting a family.

The moments when Daniel could forget about the cancer grew smaller and smaller. As the weeks, and then months, wore on, there were dozens of hospitalizations and multiple surgeries.

Jordan Meggs, a Realtor with Allen Tate, became a master at caring for an ailing husband while tending to her clients’ needs.

She’d slip out of her husband’s chemo appointments near uptown for an hour to show a house, or on his very sick days, ask one of their parents to spend some time with him in her absence. When well-meaning acquaintances commented that she must be too busy taking care of Daniel to take on realty clients, she corrected them: “I love my job. I need to work.”

Says Daniel Meggs: “She’s Superwoman.”

Family and friends rallied around them. Supporters had black rubber bracelets made with the words: “Live Life / Team Meggs.” Inside the bracelet is written: “The Most Important Shot is Your Next One.”

Last summer, the scans revealed “no sign of disease,” so Daniel got to take a break from chemotherapy.and return to Piper Glen to resume his teaching.

But even then, there were setbacks. His gallbladder became severely infected and needed to be removed. Other illnesses popped up. Then came the news that the cancer was back.

A childhood friend of Jordan Meggs’ wrote to Jack Nicklaus, asking the golfing legend to send a message of encouragement to Meggs. Nicklaus called him personally.

Supporters have donated nearly $40,000 since a gofundme page was created on April 15 to help with medical expenses.

Many longtime clients text Meggs almost daily asking for his thoughts on their golf game — but he knows why they really reach out.

“They want to know how I’m doing without having to ask,” he says.

He cries these days when he talks about the good deeds friends and family have done for him. Before cancer, it was Jordan Meggs who cried easily. Now, she’s the one with the dry eyes and he’s the one who tears up.

“I hope other people get the chance to feel love like I have,” Daniel says.

Tiger Woods says hi

On Tuesday, Harold Varner III, a Gastonia native who played golf alongside Meggs since both were about 10 years old, teared up as he talked about his friend.

“He was such a stud growing up. He never treated the lesser players - the players that weren’t as good - any different,” he said.

“Every time I talk to him on the phone, it’s just so encouraging,” Varner said. “(He’s just) full speed ahead. It’s easy to say you would do that, but for him to be in that position and to actually do it, is something else, I think.”

Daniel Meggs was weak in bed on a Wednesday in early April when Varner texted him with the video message from Tiger Woods.

He woke up in a groggy state, opened the video and heard Woods’ familiar voice speak the words: “Hi Daniel.”

He started to cry. He showed Jordan the video. They agreed: Tiger Woods’ good deed would be repaid. He would win the Masters. Four days later, he did.

Daniel and Jordan Meggs don’t know what the future will bring. They’re looking for joy in the every day.

In December, they paired a trip to Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City with some sightseeing in the Big Apple. In February, they rented an Airbnb in California with a group of friends.

Tuesday didn’t turn into the day Daniel and Jordan Meggs envisioned. They won’t get to go to the Wells Fargo Championship this year because a new round of chemo starts Wednesday.

But even in his absence, Daniel Meggs is inspiring his friend. Varner says Meggs will be on his mind when he tees off Thursday during the opening round at Quail Hollow.

“He’s just fighting, man,” Varner said.

This story was originally published April 30, 2019 at 6:12 PM.