The snow has melted, and with it, the rhythm of ski season comes to a close for me.
Skis packed away, boots stored, and another long drive back to London in the rearview mirror.
The transition always hits hard.
One day I’m surrounded by vast alpine silence, the next I’m back in the thrum of the city, people, cars, concrete, and noise.
It’s like trying to meditate in a nightclub.
London is many things, exciting, dynamic, full of opportunity, but it’s also relentless.
After time in the mountains, the sensory overload can feel like a wave crashing over me. I feel it in my body. In my nervous system. A physical weight. That’s why Scotland couldn’t come soon enough.
The plan had been to play in the Disability Scottish Open this year. A clear goal: train, improve, and compete. But golf, like life, doesn’t always work to a strict timeline.
I’m still new to the game. I only played my third full 18-hole round this morning. As of today, I still don’t have a handicap. So no, I might not be teeing off at this year’s Open, but I’ll be there. Watching. Learning. Supporting the 60 players who are.
And today’s round gave me plenty to reflect on.
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A sunny day in London is a beautiful thing, unless you’re trying to play golf with hundreds of other people.
The course was heaving. No time to pause, no chance to breathe between shots. That alone tested my patience. But golf is a game that reveals your inner world, often more than your swing.
By the 10th hole, I was dealing with more than just a crowded course. The joys of living with a spinal cord injury: I lost control of my bowel mid-round.
It’s one of those moments. You can’t plan for it. You can’t hide from it. You just manage it. Clean up, reset, move forward. It’s humbling. It’s frustrating. And it’s a reminder that even when things go wrong, you can still finish strong.
My game actually improved after that. I settled into a rhythm, focused on the fundamentals, and carded a 97, my best score yet outside.
The truth is, I hold myself to high standards. In sport, in life, in recovery. I always have. That mindset helped me as a performance coach, as an athlete, and as someone navigating paralysis and cancer.
But it’s also the same mindset that can turn a difficult day into a spiral of self-judgment. Golf, I’m learning, is the perfect training ground for emotional regulation. It mirrors life in slow motion.
One shot at a time. One hole at a time. You can’t change the last swing, and you can’t play the 18th while you’re standing on the 11th tee.
You have to be where your feet are. I’ve read those words before, but now I’m living them, on patchy fairways and fast greens.
What can we take from golf into life? For me, it’s about the discipline of coming back to neutral.
The practice of responding, not reacting. When the ball slices out of bounds or the group ahead is painfully slow, can I breathe?
When the world feels overwhelming, whether it’s a crowded city or a public medical mishap, can I ground myself, reframe, and carry on?
Golf teaches humility. There are no shortcuts. You can’t fake it. The game exposes whatever you bring to it: your fears, your focus, your frustrations. And still, you get to tee it up again. There’s always another hole, another chance.
I might not be playing in the Scottish Open this year, but I’ll be taking part in something just as valuable. I’ll be among a community of players who know that sport isn’t always about scorecards or trophies.
It’s about presence. Adaptation. Joy. It’s about finding space to breathe when the world closes in.
And who knows? By next year, I’ll have that handicap.
Maybe I’ll be on the tee, not just on the sidelines.
Either way, the journey continues, step by step, swing by swing, ad on the off chance I get my handicap before next week, I may just find myself teeing off in Scotland on the 8th of May.
