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Welcome to this edition of the EDGA Golfers First Podcast. This week we are at the 150th Open Championship at St Andrews. Although we know that golf for the disabled is relatively new, compared to the 150 years of the Open, the first association explicitly formed for golfers with a disability was set up in 1932 just down the road from here in Glasgow. We also know that golfers with a disability have played the game for much longer, with players such as Dunblane golfer Robert Martin, a high leg amputee, who won his club championship in 1923 and 1924.

In this episode, we tell you about the first golfer with a disability that EDGA has entered into the Junior Open. We also give you a flavour of the Champions Celebration at the Open Championship, where four EDGA Players teed it up with the champions of golf over four holes at the iconic Old Course. As always, we have a sneak preview of this week’s EDGA Profile which features Rich White, who found EDGA due to seeing the G4D Tour on Sky Sports. So let’s get to episode 63 of the EDGA Golfers First Podcast.

G4D Community

The first formal community of golfers with a disability was the Society of One Arm Golfers, formed in 1932. As the name implies, it had a very narrow focus on players using one arm. According to the society, “Membership is open to all persons whose non-playing hand or arm is physically impaired and as a result play golf with only one arm”.

Several other associations were soon set up. In the United States of America, the National Amputee Golf Association was formed in 1954 and others around the world followed. Fast forward to today, G4D is in most magazines and on screens across the globe.

The Junior Open

Russell Aide became EDGAs first representative at The R&As Junior Open, played at the Monifieth Links just north of St Andrews. Russell, who hails from Stirling, not the one in Scotland, but rather the one in Ontario, Canada, came over and found a golf course very different from the one he is used to back home. At 15 years of age and standing 6 feet 5 inches tall, Russell is head and shoulders above many of his competitors, but that height advantage is not too helpful when the wind blows as it can so often do on the East Coast. Russell struggled to an eight-over par 80 in the first of three days and is hoping for better things as the tournament progresses.

The Celebration of Champions

Four golfers with a Disability were invited by The R&A to compete in the Champions Celebration on the Monday ahead of the 150th Open Championship. The event took place in front of thousands of spectators over the 1st, 2nd, 17th and 18th holes of the Old Course. Juan Postigo partnered three Open Champions, Mark Calcavecchia, Jordan Spieth and Ian Baker-Finch. Jennifer Sraga was paired with Henrik Stenson, Mark O'Meara, and the 2021 Latin America Amateur Champion Aaron Jarvis. Monique Kalkman played with three legends of the Open, in Gary Player, Sir Bob Charles and Scotland’s very own Sandy Lyle. The last of the EDGA players on deck was Kipp Popert, who had Stewart Cink, Paul Lawrie and five-time Open champion Tom Watson as company on this special day.

In a world that too often teaches people to look away from anything or anyone different, people with disability so often feel excluded or even invisible. Yesterday those eyes were perhaps a little envious and totally focussed on our four athletes as they competed with the best.