First up in Captain’s Chat we caught up with Dave Andrews to talk to him about Golf, life and challenges post PD diagnosis, before he captains England’s Parkinson’s golfers at the Sport Parkinson’s Four Nations Golf Tournament in October.
How are you, Dave?
I’m good, but I’ve just foolishly spent about an hour and a half on a flat roof outside my bedroom trying to scrape off moss.
That’s a first, because normally when I speak to you are fresh off the golf course, as you have a challenge on at the moment!
I have, yeah, this is a rare day off. My challenge is to try and play the Great Britain and Ireland top 100 golf courses as listed in golf monthly. I’m currently 45 courses in!
Wow, do you have a favourite yet?
My favourite so far is probably, since I played really well there and it is also a fantastic golf course, is Royal Birkdale which is up near Southport. Why? I think it was a sort of a multitude of things, really. The greens were fantastic, and we were lucky enough to have caddies which make it a very special experience. I played well and just I guess the sort of general gravitas of the course is just a spectacular setting. there’s it’s just overall ambience. Spectacular holes, a lot of a lot of memorable holes; and again, we had a nice sunny day. So that made it very special.
Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? I think the weather must help a great deal.
It’s pouring with rain at the course, probably ends up down your list, unfortunately.
Dave, so for people who have not come across you before. We do have your profile on our Sport Parkinson’s website, but could you tell people a little bit about how you got diagnosed?
Yeah, I was diagnosed back in September 2017 and earlier that year I’d been suffering from leg cramps, when I was sat at my desk at work, and my daughter had pointed out that when I walked, my arm wasn’t swinging. I thought I just had a trapped nerve in my shoulder, so I went to see my GP. I actually saw a locum GP because my GP was on holiday and the locum said “I think you probably just need a bit of physio”, so she sent me to a physio and the physio said “no you’re very supple, you play a lot of sport, uhm, but you do have a tremor in your left side, so I’d like to send you to a neurologist.”.
I didn’t know what a neurologist was, I just had a card that said that he was worked for a company called the Nerve Centre. So, I went along thinking, “Oh, that’s fine. He’s going to tell me I’ve got a trapped nerve.” then after 20 minutes of examinations that PD People are all probably fairly familiar with. He said, “Well what do you think is wrong with you?” So I said, “Well, I’ve done the classic sort of Google research to see what the symptoms might line up with, worst case scenario it could be Parkinson’s, but I’m hoping you’ll tell me got a trapped nerve.” To which he said “I think you’ve got Parkinson’s, but we’ll send you for a brain scan just to confirm it.” So, I thought, oh lovely.
Yeah, did you have the MRI or the datscan?
I had both. Which are great fun, aren’t they? When you have to try and keep as still as possible with this tremor! I have an MRI scan now every 18 months because I’m on a doing a research project for Upper Queen Square, for I think it’s called QQ Mat. As part of which you get an MRI scan every 18 months over a four-year period to see if they can work out anything from the changes. Along with four hours of cognitive testing just to put you through your paces. Plus, over an hour in the MRI, which was lots of fun.
Yeah, it is, I bet. When you when were diagnosed how much were you playing golf then? Were you already a really strong golf player, has this interacted with your PD?
I guess so. I was probably playing G3 times a month, so not all that regularly, but I’ve been a member of a Golf Club for 15 years at that point. Six months into my diagnosis I was given the opportunity to take early retirement. So then with my newly found free time – instead of playing golf three times a month, it went up to about five times a week. So, my handicap, which had been, I think, the lowest I ever got to pre-Parkinson’s, was 16. A month ago, it was down to 12.5 So yeah, so I’m playing better golf now than ever.
So now we’re at a point where we were three weeks away, pretty much, to their golf tournament. What are you most looking forward to about the event?
Well for me. The key thing for the whole tournament was to raise the profile of Parkinson’s and how golf benefits people with Parkinson’s. This is because a lot of people when they get a Parkinson’s diagnosis just sit on the sofa and give up active life. So for me that’s the key thing, to raise the profile and to get the information out there to people that it’s beneficial. Plus, the social element! Obviously meeting with people in similar circumstances to ourselves is going to be heartwarming as well that we can all get together and play some golf and have a beer or two
You know we had a practice day last Friday and a couple of the guys were very nervous about playing, but by the end of the 18 holes they were really enthused; happy that they played and enthused about golf. I think they felt a lot happier. A lot more relaxed having gone through the experience with likeminded people who you know really. Don’t care the result of the golf, it’s really about camaraderie and showing you they can do it.
Yeah, I think you can really see it. I saw the picture at the end of it with all of you lined up and the grins on faces were from here to here. I mean they do say Parkinson’s has a frozen face, but you couldn’t tell from that picture at all because you could really see it in people eyes as well. It was a joy
So, the tournament proper will be an even bigger version of that, so it’ll be. It’ll be great.
I mean from my perspective. I’ve read all the biographies of people coming in, and they’re from interesting backgrounds and not ones necessarily that you would expect either. It’ll be a really intriguing time, I mean, the conversations alone will be really interesting. It’s going to be a good event from the social side, certainly, and I hope that it does bring out the idea of golf, because I’ve had a go at driving range now and I can see why from the turning motion point of view and posture, it’s really important. You can’t have the rounded shoulder stoop associated with Parkinson’s and hit a good ball; I don’t think.
No, no, you definitely can’t and its shoulder turns, and hips turning as well – and obviously you’re also walking about five or six miles every day that you play.
To the future…. Your remaining golf courses on your challenge? Where are you headed next? Which is your next one?
So Thursday this week I’m heading down to deal in Kent to play Royal Cinque Ports, which is on the Kent coast just along from Royal St Georges, where they held the open. Then next week I’m I’m heading down to Cornwall to play Trevose and St.Enodoc and then. Come Royal North Devon on the way home – that’s a three day trip and then back from there and off to the belfry.
One of the most reassuring things to ever think about when you play golf and a foursomes partner said this to me. Foursomes is a form of golf where you play alternate shots, so you always feel a little bit worried that you’re going to put your partner in an awkward spot, and I played with a four handicap golfer in on particular foursomes competition. He said “Dave, there’s two rules of foursomes, and I think the same applies to golf in General, so never say sorry. And forward is good. As long as the ball. Goes a little bit forward. It’s good.”
So aside from golf, have you got any other aspirations now that you want to try? Given that we do the Try-Athlon here at sport Parkinson’s, do you have any other sports or forms of exercise that you’ve always wanted to try, and you haven’t?
That’s a good question. I mean, I participate still in so much sport and exercise, ’cause I still play squash. I’ve also found huge benefits from Zoom based Boxing classes with “Box Positive”, which Charles Delve brilliantly runs. I still ski regularly, in fact, I lived in Geneva in Switzerland for six years. So, we have a small ski place out between Geneva and Mont Blanc where we used to go every weekend when we’ve lived out there and I still get out there as often as I can.
So that’s going to be an auction prize at our event if anybody wants to spend a week skiing out there, then they can then they can bid on that in the auction and I could even go along as their Ski Guide, if they were really desperate.
So I ski a lot and I I still play a bit of cricket and I used to play a lot of Football which could be why I’ve the Parkinson’s because I used to head the ball about 50 times a game. I will leave that to the to the experts in the in the press, because that seems to be one of their focal points at the moment. So, I’ve done a lot of sport and leisure over the years.
Is there anything else?
I don’t know, I’d always be open minded to give something else a go, but I’m not sure specifically what.
It’s always seems to be the case, when you put someone in this spot, that five minutes later I get a message back saying “It’s always been my only ambition to try lacrosse on a trampoline” or something really weird like that. But actually quite reassuringly Dave did not – as I think he would probably already be doing it!
Dave will be captaining the England Side for Sport Parkinson’s Four Nations Golf, 11- 13th October at The Belfry Brabazon course.
The England Team are kindly Sponsored by Clearly CBD
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