Amputees at Victorian open show why golf is the perfect sport for people with disabilities

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Amputees at Victorian open show why golf is the perfect sport for people with disabilities

Post: # 23260Unread post admin
17 Jan 2018, 12:22

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If golf is a sport of balance and concentration, then Mike Rolls is a master, especially when you consider he is a double amputee.

Mr Rolls was one of 18 competitors at the 2018 Victorian Amputee Open, which was held in Ballarat this week for the first time.

"I've always had a very competitive nature," he said.

"After I got sick football was off the table. I'm not going to play football as a double amputee."

Sixteen years after having his right leg and much of his left leg amputated, Mr Rolls won the amputee open, a competition organisers hope will become a regular and significant event on the state's golfing calendar.

From death bed to the green

Mr Rolls contracted meningococcal disease, a bacterial infection that put him in intensive care for more than a month, while on a football trip in Tasmania at the age of 18.

"They called my folks … and said get down to Hobart, Mike has got about an hour to live," he said.

"I had internal bleeds in my brain, only half my face would sweat, internal organs were all shut down.

"I was being fed through a tube in my stomach and I had a tracheostomy in my neck.

"At one point they were saying I had a 5 per cent chance to live, and now here I am playing against a whole bunch of people with a wide variety of amazing stories."
Mr Rolls said the mental and physical demands of golf mirrored and complemented his recovery, providing many life lessons in the process.

"Being able to get yourself back to a good level of golf, it's all about problem solving because it's kind of like you've got to get consistency, you've got to get comfortable, you've got to practice," he said.

"It's just an ongoing pursuit of trying to get better, and that's why I love the game so much."

On par with 'regular' competitors

Bill Bussau, who has a prosthetic left leg, came in second behind Mr Rolls following a playoff on the competition's final day on Tuesday.

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He said while players remained competitive, the camaraderie offered in the Victorian Amputee Open gave the event more of a social dimension.

"When you play with a normal group they treat you like you're a superhero because you've got an amputation, but we're no different to anyone else really," Mr Bussau said.
Mr Rolls said he encouraged other amputees to take on the sport "to feel like you could compete with just about anybody".

"It can be difficult sometimes with balance issues, but it's not something where you'll hit a bad shot and you'll slip … you don't complain about that, you just get on with it and you get better," he said.

"You have these little niggles along the way and things like that, but everyone is dealing with something out there."
http://www.abc.net.au/


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