Nine-time Sunshine Tour winner Marc Cayeux is hoping to resume his playing career next February as he battles to overcome horrific injuries sustained in a car accident on September 25.

“At this stage, he says he wants to get fit enough to play in the Zimbabwe Open next year,” said his wife Jana, “but the physiotherapists have warned that it might be six months before he is able to put weight on his feet.”

The Zimbabwean professional is being treated in the Netcare Milpark Hospital after he was airlifted from his homeland after a head-on collision with a truck while he was travelling alone from the Beit Bridge border post along the Masvingo-Chivhu road.

Cayeux’s car crashed head-on with a police truck as the officer commanding Manyame District, Chief Superintendent Tsitsi Sadzamare was driving a truck that hit a cow and swerved into the golfer’s lane. The police officer died on the scene.

Cayeux, speaking from his High Dependency Intensive Care Unit bed, expressed his gratitude to everyone who had made contact with him, visited him and expressed their sympathy for him, his wife and son Ross.

Sunshine Tour commissioner Gareth Tindall has been receiving regular updates on Cayeux’s condition and said he hoped Cayeux would be back in action as soon as possible. “It’s always difficult when one of the golfers gets injured, and especially in this way,” he said. “But we’re just glad Marc is recovering, because he’s actually lucky to be alive.”

In the collision, Cayeux’s left ankle was broken and dislocated, and he lost tissue in the injury. He will require plastic surgery to repair that damage and a call will be made soon as to when that skin graft can be done.

His right knee was shattered, he broke his right femur, and sustained seat belt injuries on the right side of his neck and chest, and the seat belt injury to his right hip caused his stomach muscles to be torn from the bone.

His condition was exacerbated when a clot was discovered in his leg. It was surgically removed on Thursday, and that process will be completed with further surgery next Monday.

“He is doing well and we’re hoping he will be out of hospital in four weeks time,” said his wife.

“We’re behind him all the way, and we hope to see him on the fairways again soon,” said Tindall.

Cayeux won his first title on the Sunshine Tour in the 1999 Zambia Open, and his last victory came in the 2008 Nashua Masters. He has had two top-10s this year – second in the Dimension Date Pro-Am and third in the Africom Zimbabwe Open.

He also plays on the ZPGA circuit where he is leading the Order of Merit. Cayeux won the NetOne Leopard Rock Classic in Vumba last month.