LITTLE BRICKHILL, ENGLAND | With all due respect to the Soudal Open in Belgium, the golf course where the real action took place last week was not Rinkven International near Antwerp, acclaimed as that course is, but Woburn Golf Club almost in the middle of England. There, deep in the leafy lanes of rural Bedfordshire, the first G4D Open took place.
G4D? Golf for disabled.
The event was staged by the DP World Tour and the R&A, and it attracted 80 competitors, men and women, from 17 countries who were disabled in one of nine impairment categories that include standing, visual, intellectual and sitting. According to the world rankings for golfers with disabilities, eight of the world’s top 10 players competed.
As I drove to Woburn, I had an idea of what was in store for me because in 2009 I had written about Manuel de los Santos, a one-legged (right leg) golfer from the Dominican Republic who played without the help of an artificial limb and competed with distinction in windy autumn weather on links courses in Scotland. “Many amputees play golf but with a prosthesis,” Elena, his wife, explained to me then. “Manuel has a very, very strong right leg from baseball and a strong back, too. He has very, very developed arms from walking six or seven miles during a round of golf on a pair of crutches.”
Yet I was not prepared for seeing so many golfers with one form of impairment or another. After a few hours, my overwhelming feeling was a mixture of humility and awe. Awe is commonplace upon seeing how far professional golfers can hit the ball. If not that, then how deftly they can chip and how crisp is the contact their irons make with the ball, giving off a resounding “click.”
The awe I experienced on this grey, overcast and often wet day last week was caused by seeing a one-legged man hit the golf ball far and straight, another legally steer his buggy down a ramp into a bunker to play his next shot, a third, paralysed from the waist down, sit in a special buggy that raised him from the sitting to standing position so that he could hit his ball. Or the blind competitor who seemed so happy. “I love that man,” someone said. “He is the smiliest man I have ever seen.”
There was an air of calm friendliness about the proceedings, which isn’t always present at golf tournaments. The players, many of whom rode in buggies, clearly engaged with one another, consoled and cheered fellow competitors. What a shame so few spectators turned up to such an event for which they would not have had to pay an entrance fee. They might have understood what Martin Slumbers, chief executive of the R&A, has often said, namely that “the World Health Organisation claims that one in six of our population has a disability, and so we want to show that golf is open to everyone regardless of ability.”
The event even lured a politician away from Parliament in London. Tom Pursglove is a minister of state at the Department of Work and Pensions, also known as minister for Disabled People, Health and Work. He spent time roaming the course and the practice ground, and returned wide-eyed. He had, he said, to rub his eyes in disbelief.
“I have had an amazing morning,” Pursglove said. “Seeing this will help me when I go back to Parliament. … I have been inspired, and I hope it will prompt discussions in golf clubs up and down the country as to what more we can do within our golf community to be more inclusive and encourage more people to take up the sport.
“It helps me in thinking what we, as government, can do to support participation, and I am looking forward to having those conversations with some of my colleagues about what we might do.”
Tom Pursglove
“As someone who is a distinctly average sportsman to see other people putting in enormous amounts of commitment and dedication to achieve what they are and to be role models for other people … is really humbling. This is something I will undoubtedly remember for a very long time. There is a lot we can learn from this.
“I think there are some really good conversations to be had with colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department of Health and Social Care about how we can support initiatives like this. … Some of the outreach work I saw today and had a go at myself was brilliant because it introduces people to golf in a really user-friendly way that doesn’t feel intimidating, helps to bring down some of the barriers and perceptions that people sometimes think but does it in a bite-sized way that feels really inclusive and supportive.
After three rounds over the Duchess course, Brendan Lawlor, an Irishman and former world No. 1 whose impairment is Ellis-Van Creveld syndrome, characterised by shorter stature and limbs, was the winner by two strokes after rounds of 70-74-75 for a 3-over-par total of 219. England’s Kipp Popert, the current world No. 1 who has a form of cerebral palsy called spastic diplegia, was two strokes behind Lawlor. Spain’s Juan Postigo, who was born with only one leg, was third on 224.
“I’m a professional golfer,” Lawlor said. “If I let the difficulties stop me, I wouldn’t be here. No one can blame their disability for not being able to hit certain shots. We are all out here for a certain reason and trying to win.
“This G4D Tour is … a dream you never think would come into reality. It has only happened in the past four years. Growing up, I was pretty good at business, so I was going to do a business degree. But books are not my forte, so I thought I had better try and get good at this golf crack, and thankfully I have made a career out of it. My life is brilliant now. I have a lovely girlfriend back home. I play golf all day, and I promote disability golf. It is something I love to do. What could be better?”
E-MAIL JOHN
Top: Greg Jackson of England fires away on No. 1.
ALEX BURSTOW, R&A via GETTY IMAGES