Tough Love and Second Chances - EDGA

After Nikki Etheridge first started her golf journey nearly three years ago she would adopt the encouraging thought, “progress not perfection”, and this genial and upbeat Scot now laughs and confirms, “There is a lot of progress, but no perfection yet!”  However, the 37-year-old from the West of Scotland is actually quietly building an impressive golf game.  In 2015, Nikki was diagnosed with havin...

Every time he enjoys a round of golf, Harris Abu Bakar from Malaysia knows the sport has played a vital part in his rehabilitation from a life-changing car accident in 2008.  Memories of his father’s golf bag as a boy, and an understanding of the technology around golf today, all inspired Harris as he rediscovered the facets of golf again as a player using one arm: the personal challenge, the peac...

Welcome to this EDGA article on Dr Kibaya Laibuta, a golfer who is visually impaired from Kenya, who wishes to raise awareness to help grow the game for more people with a disability, including in his home country.  There was a time when the game of golf for Laibuta, then a university student (later a judge), seemed like “a game for idlers”—a leisurely indulgence far removed from urgency or purpos...

When The G4D Open staged its inaugural edition in 2023, the event wasn’t anywhere on Lucy Leatham’s radar, but later that year she was involved in a life-changing car accident.  Despite surgeons saving her life, following 13 hours on the operating table, Lucy required a right arm amputation above the elbow aged 34. Fast forward three years to May, 2026, and Lucy was making her Championship debut a...

This latest EDGA article is on G4D player Graham Freeman of Belgium, a tough international competitor and also a true lover of the game. As we wrote this feature, Graham, his wife Naomi and their dog Poppy were all on a month-long golfing road-trip, stretching from home in Antwerp all the way up to Scotland and St Andrews, then south to London Golf Club, before heading west to the Celtic Manor Res...

Discovering golf proved to be only good medicine for Italy’s Loris Stradi after a serious car accident changed his life.  It would take two months in the hospital and two years of rehabilitation before Loris could walk again. He would never forget his wife Gabriella's help. During his rehabilitation, passing a golf course on his way to the physical therapist, Loris thought of golf, of its stat...

During a golf session for youngsters at Kenya Railway Golf Club you can hear the shouts of joy as children with a disability play on a golf course for the first time. “Watching the kids sharing something special as they play golf together, it makes everything worthwhile,” says Ann Wangui Irura.  Anita, as friends call her, is an administration assistant at a school for children with special needs...

Stacey Johnston-Gleason lives practically on the first tee box of the Mission Mountain Golf Course, a flat sweep of green nestled against the rugged peaks of western Montana. To some, living on ‘Hole One’ might sound like a flippant remark, but to Stacey, it’s something more—a way of being, a kind of metaphor for how she’s tackled life: one shot, one challenge at a time. Her connection to the Spec...

“When I was a little boy the doctors told my family that I wouldn’t be able to walk, run, bike or swim, and would spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair.” Fast forward 20 years and Guy Harrison, 23, from New Zealand, was preparing to play on the G4D Tour in Spain; playing with some confidence after working hard on his game and competing to a high standard – off his 8.3 golf handicap – propellin...

Riccardo Bianciardi is a strong advertisement for all the good in Italian golf as he says hello to us in his smart azure blue Italian shirt bearing his national badge, and greeting us with a wide smile.  For some time now, golf has been a salvation for him, helping him engage with life following the neurological condition he was born with but also as a balm for recent struggles. In October 2018, R...

Natasha Stasiuk finds her inner calm through golf.  This friendly 26-year-old from Oakville, Ontario, clearly loves the game. When considering her own improving performances, winning tournaments and helping to fly the flag for Canada, she will agree this is partly due to a lot of hard work and support, but success for her also means the joy she feels in playing on a golf course, looking for the pe...

Imagine playing some great golf aged 87, having given up the game once aged 75 because you had gone blind. From losing his sight in his seventies to enjoying golf again with the help of his guide, the story of Danny Daniels is remarkable.  At first his age-related sight loss threatened to beat Danny, but his wife of nearly 60 years, Diana, wouldn’t let him give up and turn his back on the game he...

René Schwenk, a native of Pforzheim in South West Germany, embodies the spirit of perseverance and dedication that defines a true athlete. René shares, “Why do I love golf? Because it’s a sport in which you’re never going to be perfect, so you always have to work on yourself. Sometimes it’s really challenging, but it brings you a lot of joy, working on yourself and reaching small goals.” Despite t...

“They pulled me out of darkness and made me walk to the light of the world. They always encouraged my challenge,” said Simon Seungmin Lee, from the Republic of Korea. The then 25-year-old spoke these words in 2022 when thanking his parents after his victory in the inaugural U.S. Adaptive Open (a tournament he has subsequently nearly won on two further occasions, including July, 2024).  Many of us...

Casper Holst-Christensen, hailing from Denmark, attributes his deep-rooted passion for golf to his father, Jon. “My love of golf stems from my Dad,” Casper reflects fondly. “I think he actually bought me and my brother clubs back when we were four or five years old.”  Living with ASD, or to give its full name, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Casper experiences the world uniquely. “For me, I’m very impai...

In professional tour golf at the very highest level, Ken Green has played with the very finest, and beaten them. He will tell you why the “extreme highs and lows” of golf are both equally necessary to feed the soul, and that his love of the game has helped many times in shoring him up through many troubled days and family tragedy. During the 1980s, this five-time US PGA Tour winner and Ryder Cup p...

Ireland’s David Quinn always said he would walk again after the car accident in the Wicklow mountains which so nearly killed him.  The significant injuries to his back and right leg left the 21-year-old paralysed for some time; he would take eight months of rehabilitation before he could leave the wheelchair and walk out of the hospital on crutches, but he made it. His reward now is he can smell t...

In this edition of the EDGA Podcast we feature Michelle Lau, an English golfer who this January made her debut on the G4D Tour, the pinnacle of golf for the disabled (G4D), in the United Arab Emirates.  This was a remarkable achievement for someone who only in May last year, when preparing for her first competitive G4D event, was fearing she would not ‘fit in’ with her non-visible disability. Than...

In this edition of the EDGA Podcast we write about Italian golfer Luisa Ceola. We featured Luisa a few years back when she was making her way in golf for the disabled after serious health struggles. But we had to chat to Luisa again, as added to her lasting love of the game, a focused competitive streak led to her winning the Italian Open in 2023 and then qualifying for the first ever ‘Net’ tourna...

Ryanne Jackson lives in St Petersburg in Florida and loves golf. The 26-year-old is a current US national golf champion. Right from insisting to her family as a six-year-old that she was a left-handed player (even though she was right-handed in everything else), Ryanne has backed her own judgement.   This trust in herself helps Ryanne in dealing with her condition, muscular dystrophy. Although she...

Lachlan Wood does not do things by halves, good or bad: “I can be a little bit obsessive,” says the 32 year-old Australian. He could be accused of that in a negative way when he threw away all the hard hours of becoming a fine golfer in his early twenties, at a point where he hated the game.    To be fair Lachlan, or Lachie to his mates, faced mitigating circumstances in battling a traumatic injur...

In 1999, Frank Sorber lost his left leg after a motor accident. Four months later he drove a car 1,200km around Ireland. The 62 year-old long time student of the Japanese martial art of Aikido has a mindset of living in the present, enjoying seeking what is here now. And he seems to like what he finds. Frank had been a non-golfer, but eight years after the accident he went to lunch one day at a re...

It was a treat for our latest EDGA podcast to meet Norwegian golfer Mette Havnaas.  Mette hears when she plays a good shot, she doesn’t see it. ‘Top notch’ is how she describes the sound when a putt has fallen to the bottom of the cup.  It takes courage for someone who has lost their sight as an adult to learn a completely new sport as Mette has done, and then to travel to different European venue...

“I lost a leg, others have lost legs and arms, it’s not the end of the world,” Robin Singh explains. “I had an accident in 1991 and had the amputation carried out in 1992, and I never looked back. That’s life. If you are confident in what you’re doing, nothing is going to stop you.” Fast forward to January 2024, and Robin ‘Rambo’ Singh was able to feel the intense satisfaction of competitive honou...

A genial and friendly white-haired Spaniard, Carlos Álvarez Rodero has the look perhaps of a typical golf traveller when we meet him in Portugal. However, though his story of how he arrived in golf is far from typical, what is possibly less surprising is how much the game has given this man who overcame severe injury and trauma. A keen motorcyclist, when he was 32 years-old and heading to work he...