You may have thought that last week the entire golfing world only had eyes for the second major of the year, the US PGA. But away from the action on the course at Valhalla and off the course at Louisville police station, another major was happening, the G4D Open, essentially a version of the Open Championship for the world’s best disabled golfers.
Established last year, this 54-hole championship, held in partnership with the R&A and the DP World Tour, was the most inclusive to date. Eighty competitors from 19 countries, men and women, amateur and pro, featured in nine sport classes across multiple disabilities. The tournament took place at the beautiful Duchess Course at Woburn in Buckinghamshire.
Players on the 14th green during day two of the golf for disabled G4D Open at the Duchess Course, Woburn Golf Club.
“For us, this is definitely the biggest event,” says Brendan Lawlor, the inaugural Open winner and world No 2 disabled golfer. The 27-year-old from Dundalk in Ireland was born with Ellis-Van Creveld syndrome, a bone growth disorder that leads to shorter stature and shorter limbs.
He started in the sport by playing pitch and putt and got so good at it that by the age of 15 he was winning senior national titles. His transition to full-sized course disabled golf was not until he was 21. He has progressed immeasurably, winning countless G4D titles around the world.
As these tournaments are held early in the week where the full DP Tour event is held, it means he can hang out with fellow Irishmen Pádraig Harrington, Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy. Now fully professional, he is managed by Niall Horan (from One Direction) and his team at Modest Golf. Asked about his aims for the future he says: “The pinnacle for us is making prize money from the game but getting into the Paralympics is definitely a close second. Because of the show, the exposure it gives you is like off the scale, isn’t it?”
Brendan Lawlor, the inaugural Open champion and world No 2 ranked disabled golfer, tees off the 13th hole.
Ah yes, the Paralympics. It’s just a short drive from Woburn through the Buckinghamshire countryside to Stoke Mandeville hospital where the Paralympics were conceived. It seems strange, given the talent and organisation behind the disabled version of the sport, that golf will be absent when the Paris Paralympics kicks off. Despite numerous attempts, the sport has failed to be accepted, with its latest refusal coming last year.
That means the earliest it can be included is at the 2032 Paralympics in Brisbane. Looking at the start list for the G4D Open gives a clue to why: the sparsity of women, making up 11 of the 80. It’s something senior players and administrators are keen to address. The top pros like Lawlor think the best way to improve the situation is by growing the G4D Tour, getting top sponsors and prize money. They feel the only way to have that growth in participation, and especially female participation, is by being examples to the young and showing there is a future for them in this disabled sport.
Tineke Loogman (above) was born, she says, with “one and a half arms”. The 65-year-old from Amstelveen took up golf when she was 40. Now she runs a fully accessible golf centre with her husband. “I’ve always been a fighter” she says. “I’m very competitive and, because of my disability, I always wanted to prove I could do things.”
She is fully aware of the challenges facing her sport and the need for more female disabled golfers. “We need role models,” she says. “The most important part is awareness. They will see people with disabilities and they will see golf being played they never thought possible for people with those disabilities.”
Mike Browne, a 46-year-old from Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, who had his left leg amputated after a service injury and took up golf 10 years ago but two years later turned professional, putts out on the fifth green.
Tony Lloyd, from Shropshire, who was born with bilateral upper limb phocomelia (elbow-length arms with no hands) and uses extra long clubs with the grip tucked into his left armpit, plays a shot into the eighth green (above left), sets up his tee shot on the 10th hole (above right) and checks his score with an official (below).
Barry McCluskey, from Glasgow, was a very good footballer and as a teenager several clubs were interested in him. It looked like he was going to follow in the footsteps of his father, the Celtic striker George McCluskey. But those dreams were ended when, in 2000, aged 18, Barry went blind in his left eye. In 2017, due to the same condition, keratoconus, Barry then lost sight in the right eye. The restriction in his vision means he requires a guide to line him in the right direction and place the club at the required angle, a role taken up by his father when free from his coaching role at Celtic’s academy.
George McCluskey (left), the ex-Celtic footballer and now coach at the club, lines up the ball for his partially blind son Barry.
George Blackshaw (below left) was 15 months old when a lawn mower accident resulted in him losing his right arm just below the elbow and his right leg. The 25-year-old from Cheshire now has a single-figure handicap and plays “back-handed”, swinging with his left arm.
He took up the game inspired by his father and two brothers and by watching Tiger Woods on television. “I’ve never seen myself as disabled because I don’t remember it happening. I’ve always seen myself as I am.”
When Richard Kluwen (above right) was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 25 years ago, his plan to cope with the disease included taking up a sport. “At first, I was a standing golfer. I stopped counting how many times I was falling on the golf course. That’s no fun. So I changed to using a Paragolfer.
“It’s a different game but I’m not falling and I’m having fun. It’s no exaggeration to say that golf saved my life. It’s because of golf that I learned the difference between the important things and the non-important things. Just enjoy life.”
Martine Gilks from Coventry and Erika Malmberg from Sweden (centre), and Aimi Bullock and her caddy (right), embrace at the end of their round.
Gustav Stigsson Andersson, a 19-year-old from Karlstad in Sweden, whose left arm needed amputation at birth and who now plays with a specially adapted prosthetic, tees off at the 11th hole.
Terry Kirby, a seated golfer with Ganstead Park near Hull, putts on the 14th hole and Takuya Akiyama, from Japan, tees off at the fifth hole.
Paul O’Rahilly, a blind golfer from Gowran Park in Ireland, is lined up on the 15th tee by his guide and caddy John Kennedy.
Ellie Perks, a golfer of short stature from Hagley, tees off at the 10th hole.
Kevin Holland, a 41-year-old with cerebral palsy from Michigan, tees off at the 11th hole.
Darren Grey, a 39-year-old with one arm from Cleveland, who is a PGA trainee professional and twice a winner of “the one-armed World Championship”, hacks out of the ferns near the 14th green (above left) and Chris Biggins, a 32-year-old from Alabama with cerebral palsy who is ranked No 3 in the world, tees off the seventh hole.
Matthew Gamble, a 24-year-old golfer with one arm from Royal Mid-Surrey golf club, who plays the sport ‘back-hand’, putts on the 14th hole (above left). Ian Bishop, a double amputee golfer originally from England but who now lives in southern Spain, a former soldier who in 2009 had both legs blown off when stepping on a device in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, tees up on the first hole (above right).
For Wayne Perske, a 49-year-old Queenslander, this was his second time visiting the UK. The first was in 2006, when, after a victory on the Japan tour, Perske qualified for the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool. You may remember it, Woods winning at a canter without needing his driver once.
Perske was born with scoliosis, a curvature of the spine not conducive to hitting thousands of golf balls a day. It got worse and worse to the point he had no disc left in the bottom half of his spine. “I could make a back swing and hear my bones. I played on through lots of pain, knocking back anti-inflammatories like they were Tic Tacs.” He then had his first back fusion, but it wasn’t long before another and then another. Golf wasn’t on his radar at all, it was just about surviving and trying to walk.
Wayne Perske is handed a club by his wife, Vanessa, and plays from a bunker at the 18th.
Now he can look back at it and laugh, boasting on this occasion he beats Woods. “He’s had one fusion, I’ve had four and a half.” He recalls being told by his surgeon after one surgery: “Forget about golf. It’s just not going to be something you will need to worry about.”
But his old competitive spirit kicked in with his rehab and gradually he has managed to slowly rebuild his swing, taking up coaching roles and building back his life in golf. Being an ex-pro, he faced a dilemma over whether he should participate in events like these. “Not only can I, I should,” he says. “I’ve now taken on a role to promote the sport because I’ve seen what it does for people. It did it for me. I’ve gone from the depths of pain depression to playing in another Open championship.
“Golf has saved me. The first time round I was too busy trying to earn a living – I didn’t stop and smell the roses and this time I get to.”
Juan Postigo Arce plays from a greenside bunker at the 10th green.
Growing up in Santander in Spain meant there was only going to be one sporting hero for Juan Postigo Arce: Seve Ballesteros. It was half an hour to Pedrena, Seve’s home course, and that is where Postigo Arce took up golf at the age of 12.
He was born without his lower right leg and knee and used to play the sport with a prosthetic until 12 years ago a botched operation on his stump meant that the nerve pain became so intense he could not use one any more. So he carried on with the game he loved on one leg. He claims he had a greater sense of balance from a very young age owing to his missing right leg and knee, so swinging like he does and keeping upright was not a problem.
Juan Postigo Arce balances his putter and crutches as he bends down to mark his ball on the 15th green.
Arce became fully professional two years ago and is managed by Javier Ballesteros, Seve’s son. He plays all round the world, in roughly 15 to 20 tournaments a year, and has become one of the most recognisable faces in the world of disabled golf. If you get the chance to see the amazing sight of Arce swinging a driver on one leg and crushing the ball 300 yards down the fairway, do. But don’t hang around; he does not know how long he can continue pushing himself through the pain barrier like so many of the other competitors.
“I’m now 28. Because of my conditions, I don’t have too many more years on tour,” he says. “It’s really hard to swing the golf club like I do, I won’t make the effort too much longer.” It is a shame for the wider sporting world that if and when golf is included in the Paralympics, he will not be there.
So many of those taking part in the G4D Open have remarkable stories. For Kris Aves, a 42-year-old from Barnet in north London, the fact he is playing at all is incredible. It was on one of his proudest days, 22 March 2017, that his life was turned upside down. Aves was a serving Metropolitan Police officer and had just picked up a commendation at a ceremony with the top brass at New Scotland Yard.
Kris Aves plays a shot to the first green.
While walking over Westminster Bridge in his top ceremonial uniform, an SUV driven by the terrorist Khalid Masood deliberately mounted the pavement and knocked him down. “My next memory was nine days later when I got woken from an induced coma. My parents were there along with associated doctors and surgeons. That’s when they told me of my injuries and that, point blankly, I wouldn’t walk again.” He describes the rehab process as being like a newborn child, working out the basics of being able to live again.
The long road back meant an extended stay at Stoke Mandeville hospital. That is where he got introduced to sports he was capable of doing. He drew up a bucket list of the three things he wanted to do. “The first one was to be a proper dad to my kids. The second was to go and watch Spurs. The third was to play golf again.”
Before the terror attack, Aves had been a very active golfer. Luckily, through one of his physios at Stoke Mandeville, he was introduced to the Golf Trust and they got him into a Paragolfer, a buggy specially adapted for golf that lifts him up to the right position to be able to swing the club properly.
The first time he hit a ball again was very emotional. “I broke down and cried. I thought it had been taken away but now it had been brought back into my life.” Soon after, his local pub, the Railway Tavern, held a golf day and raised enough money to buy Aves his own Paragolfer.
Kris Aves has trouble getting his Paragolfer to his ball in a steep bunker by the 16th green and receives a ruling from an R&A referee.
This summer Aves is competing at the Cairns Cup, the disabled version of the Ryder Cup, held near Detroit. He has even been made a vice-captain. Looking back from where he is now, he finds it hard to believe. “Early doors after the injury, they were the dog days. You just think everything’s been taken away from you.”
Playing golf again has given him a new sense of purpose. He’s already done a parachute jump and is eyeing up a shark dive. As for the possibility of the Paralympics further down the line? “If it’s put out there, I will work my hardest to give it a go.”
The men’s G4D Open champion was Kipp Popert, the No 1 ranked golfer with a disability in the world. The 25-year-old from Kent edged out Lawlor by one shot. Popert was born with a form of cerebral palsy called spastic diplegia, which impairs muscular movement and has led to countless surgeries and procedures on his legs and feet. In 2022, he became the first disabled golfer to qualify for the British Amateur Championship. He intends to turn fully professional this year and will attend the European Tour schools. This latest victory was his 10th on the G4D tour.
Kipp Popert tees off on the 5th hole sporting his Golf Saudi hat: an organisation he was made an ambassador for last November, which helps pay his travel expenses plus the extensive physio he needs.
Like Lawlor and Arce, Popert thinks the only way to inclusion in the Paralympics is to grow the sport at the bottom by increasing exposure at the top. This means more tournaments and bigger sponsors and prize money. “With the Paralympics, we’ve struggled with getting enough women and enough in the various disability classes,” he says. “The only way we’re going to do that is by increasing participation.
“As players we’d love the opportunity to inspire the next generation and for more than just a few of us to be able to do it full time. By 2032, hopefully there’s a huge amount of young kids with disabilities taking up golf just because of our tour.”
