It was about three years after being told he likely would never walk again that Dustin Boydell got back on the golf course.
All he did that day at Chilliwack Golf Club was go out and shoot an 85.
“The thirst to play was there again,” Boydell said before competing in the first round of the B.C. All Abilities Championship at Fraserview Golf Course in Vancouver. “I have always had an intense passion for golf and it was reignited that day...
“From that day I wanted to push myself to be the best adaptive golfer I could be, but at the same time use my story and experience to help inspire others that may be going through difficult situations where they think there might not be something out there for them. That’s my ultimate goal now, just to grow the game for the adaptive community and use my natural talent to help people if I can.”
Boydell’s ‘difficult situation’ began in 2018 with what he thought was just a bad back. But when the intense pain he was experiencing wouldn’t subside, the Hope native saw a doctor. The news was not good.
“An abscess had developed on my vertebrae and it compressed my spinal cord and a week later I was completely paralyzed from the waist down and being rushed into back surgery to remove it,” Boydell said.
“Once they removed it, me being naive expected just to recover and everything would be okay, but when I woke up the first doctor told me I was never going to walk again. My surgeon gave me a little more positive hope in saying my road back was going to be more difficult because paralysis had set in. But he told me, if you work hard you can maybe get back on your feet and have some sort of quality of life. So I took that to heart and worked really hard.”
Boydell spent 11 weeks at the GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre, which was followed by countless hours of physio. After spending considerable time in a wheelchair, he did walk again, although keeping his balance was an issue.
Boydell was a good junior golfer in his teens and had continued to play the game with friends in his early adult years. Early in his recovery, he started dreaming about playing again.
“After my spinal cord injury I was struggling with ways to get out and be social and just get out of the house and be active,” he said.
“I was watching golf on TV and thinking about if I could balance for the split second I needed to swing a golf club. I think I have enough memory of the mechanics that I think I can pull it off. So I just asked my physiotherapist if we could maybe try swinging a golf club."
"The first time I tried, it felt really smooth and they video-taped it and when I watched the recording I thought to myself, wow, that actually looks like a pretty decent golf swing."
In the ensuing years, Boydell began playing in some adaptive golf tournaments and whittled his handicap index down to 0.9. A recent ankle injury set him back and his index is now 3.6.
Despite a slightly abnormal gait, Boydell walks well but uses a power cart during his rounds of golf. He still faces some challenges on the course.
“I have an invisible disability,” he said. “I am mostly paralyzed from the knees down. I don’t have any feeling in my feet really, so with uneven lies I struggle finding my weight balance. I can’t feel how much or how little sand is in the bunkers, so it’s a lot of guess work.
"Then I also struggle with digestive issues that come with the paralysis and that can lead to neuropathic pain which is extremely intense and can almost knock me off the golf course if it gets bad. And in the back of your mind you are always worried about things like tripping and falling and stuff like that.”
Boydell, now 38, has made it a goal to become a world-class adaptive golfer. He qualified to play in last year’s U.S. Adaptive Open and also played in the R&A’s signature adaptive event at Woburn Golf Club near London. He’s currently ranked 144th in the world.
“I am hoping I can play a little better this year, earn some more points and hopefully get inside the top 100 before the end of the year.”
Boydell opened the 36-hole Fraserview event with an 11-over 83 and trails leader Walter van der Rijst by 7 shots.
See complete scoring here.