“I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it,
I’m about to lose control, and I think I like it…”
Catherine Gracie, a recently retired teacher in international trade from Brittany in France, is on the tee at her home golf course, melodically humming along to this famous hit song from the 1980s. The tune that is in her head; what she looks towards along the fairway, to the gentle swishing of her club back and forth while waiting with her friends, all come from the way she chooses to think about her life now.
She only started playing golf 10 years ago but for a good reason, and the game has welcomed this golfer who must swing and strike the ball with one arm only.
Catherine is wearing pink, her trademark: a pink watch is wrapped around her wrist, her golf ball on the tee is pink. Pink for the positive and the possible, living life to the full and trusting yourself to come through. It’s about what’s next, and what golf means to her. She hums it again, “I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it…”
Summing up what the game of golf means to her, Catherine says two or three days on the golf course with her friends, including fellow golfers with a disability, can give her two to three months of resilience; it is a simple health equation.
“My greatest joy is to play golf with friends, new friends, abled and disabled. It’s a great source of resilience,” she starts to explain. “Because I spend time outside, because this sport is totally addictive, because it is a real place to meet people and enjoy a common passion… and overall because it is for me a huge source of resilience to look at my friends playing with one leg, one arm or from a wheelchair… When I come back home, I feel better, I feel good, I feel pink! I really think that golf helps me to tame my disability more than I would have imagined before my accident.”
The game – which many non-golfers think might be exclusive rather than inclusive – has been a haven for Catherine since she started learning to play. At an age when it seems difficult to start again, Catherine joined her golf club, GAEA Golf de Lancieux, and this has become a ‘home from home’ for her.
Catherine was born with the neurological condition Obstetrical Brachial Plexus Palsy (OBPP). Her right arm was paralysed from birth, and she was that way until three years old, though she doesn’t remember that time. Supported by her parents, gradually she started to find mobility, mainly in her right hand, and in a few feelings and movements in the arm.
When Catherine remembers her childhood, she becomes quite emotional recalling how other children refused to offer friendship simply because of her arm.
“When I was young, I didn’t like how others were looking at me with my different arm. I didn’t make friends because their look was not very nice, not very kind. They were looking at me differently, as a different woman, just because of my arm. So now I think that with golf, thanks to golf, I’m not afraid anymore of how others look at me. I’m sure that when they look at me now it is to admire me, and not to criticise me.”
The youngest by eight years of seven children, her four brothers and two sisters seemed apart from her because of the age gap, but her elder siblings were kind to Catherine and she remembers her home life as happy. Fortunately her parents were able to encourage her to build confidence and she became determined to enjoy sports and active pursuits, and young friendships were made as this confidence grew. Catherine would use her left arm proficiently, while developing strength and a strong sense of balance, and became keen on tennis, horse riding (her father was a vet and helped her learn to ride), and also skiing; sports she loved during and after taking her diploma in business studies at university in the city of Rennes.
“My father explained to me that I could do whatever I wanted to do and I just had to try to adapt my body effectively with my arm. So I lived liked this, practising tennis a lot, skiing and a lot of horse riding. I had three horses of my own and worked hard at this sport in order to adapt to my disability.”
Catherine married her husband Thierry and they would have four loving children together as she weaved her family life in with her career as a teacher of international trade to college students aged 18-22 in Saint Malo, near to her home in Dinard.
“Unfortunately, in 2014, a small ski fall caused 22 fractures to my fragile arm, and the surgeon told me that from then on my arm would be more like it was when I was born; not working,” Catherine explains.
The cruel irony of the accident would reveal the startling fact to Catherine that her arm had once been very different for her as a small child, and that she was now back to ‘square one’.
“This was a very, very big surprise for me because I didn’t have any conscious memory of the fragility of my arm. My father hadn’t mentioned it, and I now think he was right to encourage me to be active and not worry. But what a surprise for me! I didn’t remember my first years of life in this way… I was very disappointed.”
The “humour and intelligence” of her surgeon, Professor Gilbert, chased away the darkest thoughts that hit Catherine at this time, replacing them with the ‘pink’ mindset unique to his patient. Golf undoubtedly played a central part in her rehabilitation, while Catherine says Prof Gilbert helped her rediscover the ‘life force’ within her.
“He told me to ‘see life in pink’, and that is what I do now! He gave me the key. Yes, be positive, and I think that meant that there was this force inside me, the solutions were inside me.
“Your brain will remember and your brain will tell you how to do it. And I adapted nearly without any consciousness of that. He told me, you just have to see life in pink and everything will go. I began to buy pink clothes, shoes, watches and pink golf balls and so on, and really he gave me the key to let my brain do what it had to do.
“So in 2014, I was 54, my right arm did not work anymore, so I decided that it was time to practise a less dangerous sport. I’m living in Brittany, surrounded by golf courses, so naturally I decided to try to play golf, with one arm. I met an excellent teacher, Emmanuel ‘Manu’ Carlier, who helped me a lot, and we both agreed to take time to decide if I would play forehand or backhand. That’s why during the first ten lessons, I played five balls forehand and five backhand, with a driver through to a wedge or a putter. A few months later, we decided that I would play backhand, and I’m delighted with this choice. I have been playing golf for 10 years now, my current golf handicap is 25. Even with one arm I can hit a long ball as a woman player and I can win my matches.”
Catherine adds: “Golf takes up such a large part of my life, I can’t imagine not being able to play anymore, and that’s why my physiotherapist Alison is very important for me: she helps me to preserve my left shoulder which has been overused since my birth and which is no longer in very good condition.”
Making friends and feeling well have been the key drivers over the last decade, as well as challenging herself to improve. Catherine enjoys the competitive side too, and her husband Thierry, who took up golf himself in 2015 inspired by Catherine, travels with her to some of the G4D (golf for the disabled) tournaments, mainly in France.
A string of good performances moved her up the World Ranking for Golfers with Disability for her to qualify to play in the Stableford category of the 2024 RSM European Play-offs held at North Hants Golf Club in England.
In a series of emails with this writer, Catherine responded with lots of humour – writing in her signature ‘pink’ text no less. In the cooler and damper September weather of Hampshire, the navy blue rainwear would hide some of the blushes and accents of pink in her golf clothing but the British rain could not dilute her enthusiasm.
Once you meet Catherine, say hello and compliment her on the pink clothing, it is suddenly easier to smile whatever the weather is doing. Catherine was paired in the RSM charity day competition with near-scratch golfer Gordon Mclay form East Lothian, in Scotland. Gordon, a retired scaffolder, who could no doubt bend metal pipes with his bare hands, would actually show that he too had a creative personality, and the pair would hit it off tremendously on the course, their score winning the greensomes championship on day.
“Gordon was the caddie of Roger Chapman (a professional former European Tour player). He has a wonderful eye to see the ball near to the hole and find the way to get it there. He taught me a lot about visualising golf shots, so it was a pleasure and this has created great memories.
“It was really a pleasure to be near London and to play in such a wonderful club as North Hants. I couldn’t stop singing: I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it, and so on! I had three wonderful volunteer caddies, including Carol, the Ladies’ Captain, it was a great week.”
Today, Catherine talks so well, to this writer in her second language, about why being in the golf community means so much to her, playing with other golfers with a disability, in an atmosphere of trust and respect. She apologises for becoming a little emotional but has no need to do so. These are happy emotions.
“To look at my friends playing with one leg, one arm or from a wheelchair and seeing everybody able and disabled together in golf. When you come back home with just one arm missing, you compare to people with no legs or just one leg; we are all playing golf. I usually say that two or three days playing golf in such a competition give me two or three months of resilience.”
Catherine knows how vulnerable we all can be. Her attachment to golf over the last decade has helped her use what her surgeon called her life force in such a positive way, including forming friendships with people from many different countries, friendships she was denied as a youngster. Catherine has brought all the positivity forward from the surgeon’s office, the pink thinking, to be able to share her life with new friends through the game of golf. To be excited, in fact, not to hide it, and to lose control a little, and find you like it!
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