Two Australians and a New Zealander are among the world’s most talented and inspirational golfers competing in the G4D Open at the prestigious Celtic Manor Resort from today.
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James Gribble and Lachlan Wood, alongside Kiwi Guy Harrison, feature in a field of 80 of the world’s leading golfers with disabilities, who will compete across 54 holes of strokeplay on the Roman Road course.
Established in 2023, the G4D Open will be played for the fourth time this year after being held at Woburn in 2025, when Brendan Lawlor and Daphne van Houten claimed the respective men’s and women’s titles.
The R&A and DP World Tour co-sanctioned championship features nine sport classes across multiple impairment groups, covering standing, intellectual, visual and seated categories.
Gribble, an Australian quadriplegic golfer, will make his G4D Open debut in the Seated 1 sport class.
“It’s basically the British Open for disabled golfers; it’s a big deal and all the top guys in all the different categories will be there,” Gribble said.
“Hopefully I put my best foot forward.”
Golf had always been central to Gribble’s life. Before his accident, he regularly played 18 holes before and after work and played off a handicap between two and four.
“It was just a massive part of my life, whether it was for work, for travel, with friendships – I was one of those proper golf tragics.”
In 2008, his life changed forever. While backpacking through Zambia, Gribble suffered a tragic accident that left him a quadriplegic.
After four years of intensive rehabilitation, he regained enough mobility to walk short distances with crutches and recovered some movement in his right arm.
Determined to return to the sport he loved, he headed to a local park where his father taped a golf club to his arm because he had no hand function to grip it himself.
“Even though I didn’t hit it very far, just to feel that connection like I was back in the game, that was the twinkle-in-the-eye moment,” he said.
“Being able to get to the point where I could even think about doing it again physically, that was a massive driver for my recovery, as golf was something that I loved.”
Since then, Gribble has competed in All Abilities events around the world, navigating courses in a Paramotion wheelchair and using clubs with modified grips that allow him to slip his hand in like a glove and execute his shots.
The rapid growth of All Abilities golf has created opportunities for Gribble to compete internationally, with tournaments already taking him across Australia, the United States, Japan, South Africa and now the United Kingdom.
Joining him at the championship will be fellow Australian Wood, the 2023 Australian All Abilities champion who is currently ranked world No.3 in the World Ranking for Golfers with Disability, along with reigning New Zealand All Abilities champion Harrison, ranked No.137.
Gribble’s journey also inspired him to found Empower Golf, an organisation dedicated to creating greater access to golf through clinics, coaching, competitions, accessibility support and adaptive equipment.
He established the organisation in 2014 after encountering numerous barriers when trying to return to the sport himself.
“I had a couple of bad experiences where I turned up on my local golf course and couldn’t get into the front door or the pro shop,” he said.
“No one had heard about disabled golf or coaching people with disabilities and there was no real equipment available.
“I got all these doors shut in my face and I obviously thought, I can’t be the only person who wants to get back into golf.
“Empower Golf was basically set up to change that for people by bridging the gap between the disabled individual, the courses, equipment and coaches to lower the barrier to entry.
“I went through that journey back to golf myself. Being able to make that happen for other people, just seeing the twinkle in their eye or a smile on their faces and seeing them getting back to a sport that they lost or had never found before.”