When comparing comebacks from sporting injuries and ailments, David Rushbury can make the famous surgery on Tiger Woods' left knee look like a mere scratch. The 48-year-old Scottish golf coach, who suffers from a condition known as reactive arthritis, can make you shift in your chair in discomfort with tales of reconstructive work on both hips, a fusion of the bones in his right foot and replacements in both knees.
You wouldn't even suspect it just by looking at him. The Glasgow-born Rushbury, who returned to professional coaching this month at Loudoun Golf Range in Galston, Ayrshire, appears lean, fit and able.
Although he hasn't quite proclaimed himself physically strong enough to play a full round again, he can hit a five-wood a highly respectable 220 yards and can demonstrate everything you would expect a coach to be able to do. He stands up to show his one technical flaw, a stiffness in that right foot on the follow through, but it would need an eagle eye to spot that if he didn't point it out himself.
Arthritis, in its many forms, is rife in the UK, where it's estimated there are nine million sufferers. That's approximately one in six, and in golf it has affected, among others, Andrew Murray, the former European Open champion and now coach and commentator who advised Rushbury, and Jose Maria Olazabal, the two-time Masters champion. It's a disease that not only has a crippling physical effect but can also tear at the soul.
Rushbury, who himself found inspiration from the way American Bruce Vaughan held off Tom Watson, Greg Norman and John Cook to win last year's Senior British Open at Royal Troon despite having had six surgeries on his left knee, said: "I hope my story can give hope to others. My message is that there is a life after arthritis."
His ailment was diagnosed when he was 19 and his left knee swelled up during a bout of flu. It was the same knee he had dislocated while playing badminton and that was no coincidence. "It seeks out the weakest part of the body, which for me was that knee. It was excruciating but I was on painkillers and I was told it would disappear within six months, which it did,"
he said.
He had no fears then it would develop the way it has done but, after failing to gain a European Tour card at qualifying school at La Manga and aware of that weak left knee, he opted to pursue coaching, a career that took him to the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Spain.
Apart from a slight scare when hisright knee swelled up as he came down with food poisoning, there was little warning of what was about to happen. In Germany, he took a full swing with his driver during a bounce game and, to his horror, his left knee dislocated. Theupshot was that he underwent four surgeries over the next four years, two on each knee.
Ultimately, he came home to Scotland to live with his parents, Bett and Bill, at Troon where he trained as a teenager under GordonCunningham, the former Scottish PGA champion and, after a visit to Glasgow Royal Infirmary, it became apparent that the arthritis had gone through the joints in the lower body, hips and all.
It was then that he contacted Murray, who was able to return to the European Seniors Tour after hip "resurfacing" work which relines rather than replaces worn joints. "That was helpful and he recommended that procedure to me," said Rushbury who had the work carried out privately and received assistance from a PGA benevolent fund.
While the operation was a success, there was to be no respite. The foot was next, followed, three years ago, by the knees. Therehabilitation was tough; there was no golfing precedent for the extent of the surgery he had undergone. He was into completely unexplored territory.
For the last two years he has been rebuilding his strength with three gym sessions a week under a personal trainer with a good knowledge of sports injuries. Finally, last year, he was given his start at Loudoun Driving Range, atfirst on a voluntary basis and nowprofessionally.
"There has been no negative reaction," he assured. "I've taught people who've told me they've had a hip replacement and I'm able to say what, only one?' As long as they can see me for who I am, that I have a passion for coaching and I can demonstrate, then there's no problem at all.
"I'm back to playing as well, though I'll probably leave it more until the spring. I haven't got back to the driver yet. I've been working with wedge shots, but that's my coaching philosophy. If you have the short game then the long game will develop.
"I always hoped, deep down, Iwould get back to my career and there were times I doubted if Iwould make it. But I have always had a positive attitude, my parents have been fantastic and the right approach to golf helped me too. Just as on the course, you should take it one shot at a time and never get ahead of yourself, I took it one surgery at a time."
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