Handicap Zero

This article is presented by the magazin Paraplegiker with the permission of the MVS Medizinverlage Stuttgart.

Anthony Netto swings the club, strikes out once, twice, after the third time, the 42mm-ball speeds over the driving range, as the area is called where golfers practise hitting golf balls. After a perfectly curved trajectory, the small white ball lands in the distance.

Before the powerful hit, the native-born South-African had leaned on his golf club searching for balance on his stand-up wheelchair. After a car accident and a multiple sclerosis disease, the former paraplegic golf professional depends on this innovative piece of sports equipment. However, it did not do any harm to his golf career. Today, living in his adopted home town Cologne, he still travels to tournaments and is active in matters of golf marketing around the world. The coach of the national disabled golfers team, who holds the best possible Handicap (”0“), primarily supports the use of golf in therapy.


Golf – an integrative sport

 
Anthony Netto plays the ball: Soon
it speeds over the field;
© Parabasetec

Anthony Netto supports in very different ways. The “Behinderten-Golfclub e.V“ (Club of disabled golfers) is a platform where people with diverse disabilities get together. The BGC consecrates itself to the therapeutical approach of golf and supports clinical institutions and golf clubs in technical and sporting issues. These institutions and clubs intend to put the point of intersection between golf and disability into practice.

Golf is remarkably suited for therapeutical approach because of the precise, coordinated movements and the necessary concentration and balance. It particularly offers disabled people to take part in the game actively and to compete with walkers.
Golf is one of the few integrative sports that enable disabled and non disabled people to play on the same level. There are no special rules; everyone plays together in the different leagues which are divided according to the golf handicaps.

A network of PARAGOLFERS - special stand-up wheelchairs - is to help golf to become popular as a therapy and mass sport. The PARAGOLFER is intended to be stationned on as many golf courses as possible in order to introduce more disabled people to golf in an easy way.

Anthony forcefully drums up business and the next big event is upcoming soon: In 2008, golf gets paralympic. Then, one thing is certain: Anthony Netto will be part of it – as coach, “official” or as a player – and promote his cause.


General Information on Golf



Golf – small ball into a distant hole …

Disabled golfers on the field are no
rare sights anymore; © Parabasetec

The goal of the game is to golf the maximal 45,93 g heavy ball with preferably less hits into a 10,8 cm wide and usually hundreds of meters distant circular hole. At first sight, the game seems to be very simple, but on closer inspection it reveals a complex set of rules.

Golf is a sport with history. The game on the trimmed green pitch was already founded in Scotland in the 14th century. There, it became so rapidly popular that the Scottish parliament decided to prohibit Golf in 1457. One feared the neglecting of important shooting with bows and arrows for military purposes. Nevertheless, the detractors were also quickly infected by the ball game. Most of all, members of the English royal house (James I. and his son Charles I.) contributed to the fact that the sport enjoyed great popularity. Before this, the sport got to continental Europe with Maria Stuart.