Lives Changed Through Golf
For more than twenty years, I have written profile stories. It has been my great fortune to spend time getting to know people whose stories I was able to share with readers around the world.
Some of those readers first saw my work on websites such as EDGAgolf.com, CPG.golf, randa.org and my own website. Others found the stories in magazines and newspapers. Remember when those were a thing?
However these stories have travelled, the words I used were shaped by each person’s willingness to share their experience in their own way. But that is only part of the story. It is the reader who paints the picture from the words on the page. The reader must do some of the work, fill in the blanks and create meaning. Perhaps they have had a similar experience, or know someone who has. Perhaps not. In any case, the story one reader constructs will likely be different from the story constructed by another.
My aim in creating these profiles was simple: to help more people see the people behind professional golf and golf for the disabled, G4D.
What I discovered was much deeper.
These were not just stories about golf. They were stories about people building, and sometimes rebuilding, lives. Testing limits. Finding confidence. Facing loss. Chasing dreams. And, often, learning to see themselves differently.
This section brings together a selection of those profiles, republished here on b-real.org and sometimes lightly revisited, because they remain central to my own journey through a career in golf and to the way I understand the game today.
“I Need My Life Back”
Originally written for EDGAgolf.com, this story of Kenny Bontz is republished here as part of my personal archive of G4D player profiles.
The words “I need my life back” came deep from within the soul of Kenny Bontz. The flamboyant American, who hails from New Jersey, is chiselled from a different kind of rock. Get past the mohawk, beyond the confident walk and through the hard-man exterior, and you will find someone who has experienced the pressure of disease, felt the heat of addiction and emerged on the other side, shining like a precious diamond. READ THE FULL PROFILE OF KENNY HERE
From Centre Court Dreams to the Home of Golf
Originally written for EDGAgolf.com, this story of Monique Kalkman is republished here as part of my personal archive of G4D player profiles.
As an athlete, Monique Kalkman has won some major battles. Perhaps the first was an intensely satisfying battle against herself, to hone early tennis skills by pounding a tennis ball against the bricks of the garden wall.
Then in 1979, aged 14, when hopes and dreams were blossoming, she had to endure a traumatic fight against devastating illness that left her in a wheelchair. READ THE PROFILE OF MONIQUE HERE
If you would like access to more of these please drop a line to tony@b-real.org