Many of the world’s most talented golfers with disabilities will return to compete in The G4D Open this week at Woburn (15-17 May).
Established last year the Championship – held in partnership between the DP World Tour and The R&A and supported by EDGA (formerly the European Disabled Golf Association) – is one of the most inclusive ever staged.
The G4D Open features nine sport classes across multiple impairment groups, with 80 men and women players of both amateur and professional status competing over Woburn’s renowned Duchess Course. With an age range from 15 to 68, players from 19 countries across the globe are represented including from the USA, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Africa.
Contested over three days from Wednesday to Friday and across 54 holes of gross stroke play there will be an overall winner, along with an opposite sex winner and a gross prize in each of the sport classes which cover various categories in Standing, Intellectual, Visual and Sitting.
A year on from his historic win in the inaugural Championship, Irishman Brendan Lawlor takes his place in a world class field. Lawlor, 27, who has a rare condition called Ellis–van Creveld syndrome that is characterised by a shorter stature and shorter limbs, edged out Kipp Popert to win by two shots last May and arrives ranked second on the World Ranking for Golfers with Disability (WR4GD). Englishman Popert – a nine-time winner on the G4D Tour who was born with a form of Cerebral Palsy called Spastic Diplegia – is the world number one.
Lawlor and Popert are among 14 of the world’s top 20 players competing at Woburn, including all of the top five. Daphne van Houten is the leading female golfer, with the Dutch player ranked 25th in the world.
Australia’s Wayne Perske – who played in The Open in 2006 before battling severe back problems – makes his debut, having won the inaugural Scottish Open for Golfers with a Disability on Friday.
The English pair of Martine and Heather Gilks will make history as the first mother and daughter duo to play in The G4D Open.
The G4D Open is a tournament on the G4D Tour schedule – a series of nine events in six countries across the 2024 season. Formed in 2022, the G4D Tour is operated by the DP World Tour with its other tournaments taking place on the same course, the same week, as high profile DP World Tour events.
Spectators are encouraged to attend The G4D Open at Woburn, with attendance and car parking free of charge. Woburn continues its rich history of hosting amateur and professional championships with Final Qualifying for The Open from 2014 to 2017 and most recently the AIG Women’s Open in 2019, both played on the Marquess Course.
The establishment of The G4D Open follows on from the inclusion of the Modified Rules of Golf for Players with Disabilities into the Rules of Golf and The R&A and USGA’s on-going administration of the WR4GD.
View more information on The G4D Open here.
