This is no place to be going into details of how competitors from the European Disabled Golf Association (EDGA) can now qualify to play in elite Golf for the Disabled (G4D) competitions, which are played on the same courses and in the same tournament weeks as events on the DP World Tour. Suffice to say that this grand advance is all down to Tony Bennett, the president of EDGA, and the DP World Tour and its sponsors, DP World, coming together with the aim of making golf the most inclusive sport in the world.
In 2022 there were seven G4D events, but this season their number is up to a minimum of eight, with the most recent addition the G4D@Hero Cup, which is being held in Abu Dhabi on January 13-14.
Essentially, the Hero Cup is where Luke Donald, this year’s Ryder Cup captain, intends to study the form of those hoping to put up a better performance than the team of ’21, which lost by a whopping 19-9 score at Whistling Straits.
Now Donald may or may not have been leafing through Thomas Macaulay’s the “Lays of Ancient Rome” ahead of a Ryder Cup which is to be played in the Italian capital, but there is a verse which could well explain why he is so keen for the disabled golfing fraternity to be in the same place at the same time as he is. The verse in question is all about Horatius and a couple of friends doing their best to defend the Sublicius bridge from the advancing Etruscan army: “Then out spake brave Horatius, the captain of the Gate: To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods.”
Now if anyone knows a thing or two about “facing fearful odds,” it has to be the disabled golfing community. Their shoulders don’t drop and they play their hearts out whatever the situation. For an example, just look at Juan Postigo Arce, the dashing Spaniard who casts aside his crutches to play one-legged golf to a 0.4 handicap.
There is of course, something else to recommend these individuals. In contrast to what is or isn’t happening with the LIV men and their millions, Arce and the rest are enriching their lives in a wonderful way while inspiring a host of other disabled folk to try their game.
Four of their number were invited to compete in the R&A’s Celebration of Champions on the Monday of Open week at St Andrews and, in many ways, they were the stars of the show. Arce aside, there was Dutchwoman Monique Kalkman, who plays to single figures from a wheelchair, Germany’s Jennifer Sräga, born with achondroplasia, and Kipp Popert, the Englishman who is No. 1 in the World Ranking for Golfers With Disability and who longs for golf to be included in the Paralympics.
Not too many years ago, all of the above would have been watching the world’s leading professionals from behind the ropes.
Today, it’s a two-way affair. When the EDGA or G4D players are around, the DP World Tour crew hang back to study how their new companions master a game which is so much more difficult than the one they know.
Lewine Mair
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