Nerves were his biggest problem at the Dunhill. While his running is all the better for having an 80,000-strong crowd hollering from the side-lines, a cluster of fans at the Home of Golf was another thing again, especially when they started to play for real. “It’s when you do something that you’re not accustomed to doing that the nerves can kick in,” he said, in a reference to how he had only had a couple of games over the summer.
He revealed that he had felt much the same brand of anxiety prior to a Dancing with the Stars programme in Italy in 2011. “It was 157 seconds of absolute torture,” he laughed. “I’d like to say I had two left feet when, of course, I don’t have any feet ...”
Pistorius laughs a lot and not so long ago kept everyone entertained as the key speaker at a prosthetics conference run by the University of Strathclyde. At one point, he had regaled his audience with the story of the day his parents finally relented and allowed him to accompany his older brother on a go-cart. When things started to go wrong and the vehicle was careering, uncontrollably, towards the main road, he saved the day by thrusting one of his wooden legs between the wheels.
When asked if his participation in the Dunhill might encourage other amputees to take up golf, Pistorius clearly suspected that the way he played was unlikely to inspire anyone.
Yet he made the very valid point that there were plenty of Paralympic athletes and a lot of amputees who would love the game. “You don’t have to be world-class sprinters or extreme sportsman ... there are more and more people living with amputations now due to diabetes, civil wars and car accidents and golf can work for them where other sports can’t. Also, it’s a game where so many friendships can be kicked off.”
The truth, of course, was that he was inspiring people right, left and centre at the Dunhill, including Paul Casey on the day the former Ryder Cupper played in his party at Kingsbarns.
Pages
Click here to see the published article.
