Local hero: One-armed golf no handicap for Griffin

Assistant Sports Editor

Friday 21 September 2012

STUART GRIFFIN is discussing his fifth-place finish in the World One Armed Golf Championships at St Andrews in July.

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Richard Winton

"I came third a couple of years ago," he says. "But it tends to be dominated by the single-handicappers and I'm off 15."

It would, then, be entirely understandable to assume the prestigious event is a handicapped tournament, decided by net scores rather than gross. Not so. Is the 30-year-old then, in fact, a one-armed bandit; a single-handed golfer with an artificially-inflated handicap? "Well, I suppose you could maybe say that . . . I just think I get pumped up by the occasion and seem to raise my game a bit."

On the one-armed golf circuit, occasions do not come much bigger than the Fightmaster Cup. Named after Don Fightmaster – the American is renowned as the "Arnold Palmer of amputee golf" – the tournament is a biennial challenge match between Europe and a combined USA and Canada side played the week before the Ryder Cup, in the same format and with just as much, if not more, rancour. Griffin has been a key member of the Europe team in both the previous stagings of the event, the 2008 defeat in Kentucky and the revenge victory in Wales two years later, and will begin the defence of the trophy in today's foursomes at Hilton Indian Lakes Resort, the Chicago club just over a mile away from where Jose Maria Olazabal's team will gather on Monday. Their previous trip across the Atlantic might have been little more than a jolly, a team mainly comprised of those over 50 and accompanied by wives and families, this time a much younger squad of lower handicap players will go it alone in their quest for success. It might not be Medinah, but the discord remains just as visceral. "It will certainly be competitive," acknowledges Griffin, who arrived in the US on Sunday with his father, and caddie, Colin. "There is a wee extra edge to it. They've refused to give me tap-ins in the past and that kind of thing. That stirs it up a bit."It's nicely poised at 1-1 and the Americans always like to whip it up a bit with their whooping and hollering, but we have to just block that out and focus on our games. A few of them were over in St Andrews telling us what they were going to do but a lot of them struggled at the Old Course because they're used to their target golf and had no idea how to cope with bump and run." That, though, is attributable to a lack of experience rather than any ability deficit. Despite a range of disabilities – limb amputation, cerebral palsy or, as in Griffin's case, the legacy of a stroke – some of the competitors have handicaps as low as five, hours of work on the range and greens developing the rhythm required to counter a lack of brute strength and a touch as good as any of their able-bodied counterparts."There are fewer things to go wrong with one hand, I guess," says Griffin, who plays left-handed. "The only difficulty is getting it out of the rough or bunkers because I lack a little bit of power."Still, the fact he can play the game to such a standard is remarkable in itself, given the trauma Griffin endured as a eight year old. He remembers playing football in the school playground and crossing for a team-mate to score. Then, amid the celebrations, he collapsed. Unable to get up, he was helped from the pitch and spent the next month in hospital.Even now, 22 year later, nobody is able to tell him what happened, or even why. Not that Griffin appears overly concerned. "You've just got to get on with it," says the Enable Scotland support worker, shrugging. "Some of the boys in the team have had motorbike accidents whereas I just fell over. It doesn't really affect me day-to-day, it's just that I can't grip with my right hand."That apparently minor inconvenience has not stopped Griffin becoming a highly-regarded member of Stirling Golf Club, having initially joined as a junior once the back garden became too small for him to thrash a plastic ball around. Indeed, since his stroke he has become involved in basketball and badminton, too."In a way, it's been a good thing because it opens different avenues for you," he says. "If I hadn't had a stroke, I wouldn't be a member of the Society of One-Armed Golfers and going to play in the Fightmaster Cup; I wouldn't be looking at trying to qualify for the Paralympics in 2016; and I wouldn't have met all the great people I have. I wouldn't have believed any of this."Now all he has to do is convince those who refuse to believe that he is a legitimate 15-handicapper.

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Local hero: One-armed golf no handicap for Griffin

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