By Jim Tucker

Lachie Wood understands more than most the pain felt in every stride taken by Tiger Woods before his withdrawal at the Masters.

Fighting back from a life-changing car accident of his own has taken a full commitment of body and mind to be one of the world’s best golfers with disability.

Wood, 32, is heading to The G4D Open, the groundbreaking tournament launched by The R &A. The May 10-12 event will prove just how far he has come when he takes on the Duchess course at Woburn in England.

The Hervey Bay golfer’s progress has already been staggering. The one-marker's victory at the New Zealand All Abilities Championship to open April made it three wins in a row.

His world ranking has jumped from No. 50 to No. 6 for this exciting trip beside fellow Aussies Geoff Nicholas, Cam Pollard and Adam Letherbarrow.

“It’s pretty crazy to think that this event in England offers the opportunity to be world No.1 because it has been created to be the ‘major’ for golfers with disability,” Wood said.

To think that in February he was testing the waters at the Victorian Inclusive Championships at 13th Beach where rounds of 76 and 77 won him the title.

Wood hails from Rosebud on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. His life in the sun of Hervey Bay on the Queensland has been dictated by events.

At 16, he was seriously injured while a passenger in a single-car accident in Rosebud.

It nearly claimed his life. It has left him with a left leg held together by 14 screws and a metal plate bigger than his hand. He feels it every day poking into his sock.

His back still bears the long scar from where two muscles were taken to graft into the repair work on his shattered and now shorter left leg. He has had more than 30 surgeries and there will be more to come.

He felt the support of the all-abilities golf community immediately when he arrived in Auckland for the event at Windross Farm.

“I was picked up at the airport by a golfer I was meeting for the first time. The Aussies shared a house and the whole scene was really helpful,” Wood said.

After his success at the NZ All Abilities Championship, Wood arrived home from the draining mission to a fall in temperatures in Hervey Bay.

“I woke when I got back home and the temperatures had dropped. My bones, back and hips just ached and I couldn’t get out of bed,” Wood said.

“I had to get the heater on. The heat is the reason I moved to Queensland...I pretty much had to get away from the cold Victorian winters.”

Tiger Woods had his own leg shattered in a 2021 car accident. He was limping noticeably before he withdrew after the third round of the recent Masters.

“I have great admiration for what Tiger Woods would have put himself through to even get that far. He would have felt it in those cold, wet conditions. Walking cross-hill is when his leg would really have been hurting apart from all the up-and-down at Augusta,” Wood explained.

Wood is in the PGA of Australia Pathway Program at Hervey Bay Golf Club.

Supporters at his club and sponsors have been generous in helping him put together the money to embrace the trip to Woburn to play against some of the world’s best golfers with disabilities.

The James Dobson Trust, Bay Osteopathy and Injury Rehabilitation, Granite Earth & Construction, Slot Me In, Graphic Screenprinting, Shademakers Hervey Bay and Remax are supporting Wood’s dream. Two Hervey Bay members also dipped into their own pockets.

Playing in The G4D Open will be a wonderful peak for Nicholas who has done so much on and off the course for golfers with disability in Australia.

Pollard, who is a member at Coffs Harbour Golf Club, won this year’s Webex Series across the TPS events and a grant from Webex will help support his travel. He finished second at the NZ All Abilities Championship where Letherbarrow made his first hole-in-one at the event.