On Course Foundation: “We are all injured people that are now competing”
“With golf I was heavily blind at the time. I went down to get out of the rehab centre and I found it was doable, not perfect every time of course. But it only takes that one great shot to make you love the game and it just built from there. I was really enjoying it and joined a club.
“It’s nine or 18 holes with lads who have been through what I’ve been through, or are going through what I’ve been through. It’s better than any sort of therapy. The handicap system makes it a level playing field. You are socialising, you are outside – exercising in the fresh air – and you are putting the world to rights but not thinking about it.
“When you are on the course, all your problems are rolled into one and it’s that little white ball that we are trying to get as far away from as possible or get in the hole in as few shots as possible.”
Kate Surman, who plays at The Springs in Oxfordshire, has battled a rare form of cancer
“I was heavily into my sport in the Army. It all came to a sticky end when I was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer in my jaw. I had six months strong chemotherapy and then surgery to remove my jaw and rebuild it using my left fibula. I then had another six months of chemo.
“Now, I am kind of cancer free but I still have regular scans and they need to rebuild the jaw. It was Ewing’s sarcoma – a one in two million kind of thing. It was just a freak, in the DNA apparently.
“That was the end of everything to me – world crashing down. It was pretty tough but you’ve got to see the good from the bad. With the risk of being corny, On Course was the light that led me away from being down about the whole thing. It was at the point where I was having a lot of chemo.
