We have to look ahead, dream, strive, but at the least we have to hope. Searching for the good out there guides us away from the shadows. Some of the decent things: nature, perhaps art, literature, a shared passion such as a sport, can make up that guiding light.
Talking recently with Ellen Larsen, a golfer from near Oslo in Norway, as Ellen described how she and her husband Per Arne managed to overcome hugely challenging health conditions to thrive again – using golf as a regular shared activity to help – you soon realise that golf became their guiding light, their dream, their ‘looking-ahead’.
Helping you get your health back? That’s pretty good. Golf can therefore be seen as something of a gift, just as poetry or gardening can be to others; a gem to be prized. Ellen likens golf to unwrapping a ‘Kinder Egg’, where you get more than one treat. “Through golf you keep social, physically active and get a good brain workout,” she explains.
However we package it, golf for Per Arne and Ellen Larsen is a very big deal and they want to share it with others because it works well for them, so they are golf volunteers helping new people into the game, including people with disabilities who are in rehabilitation after health trauma.
Together they welcome around 200 patients from the rehabilitation clinic CatoSenteret in Son for twice-a-month sessions to enjoy their first taste of the sport at the very welcoming Soon Golfklubb and Soon Golfbane, where they have been members for 15 years. This “giving back” does not feel like volunteering ‘work’ Ellen says but a genuine pleasure for the couple as both she and Per Arne relied on the expertise and commitment of the staff at CatoSenteret to recover from their respective illnesses, in those days when golf was their light at the end of the tunnel.
“I think golf created a big goal for us to get better and we were looking forward to the time we might go out with our golfing friends again, to go and just walk on the golf course, and enjoy feeling a bit normal like that.”
Ellen adds: “I think my positivity has given me a lot because I think of solutions, I don’t think of problems. I think that’s also why I have recovered well. Golfing is my meditation… I do not do yoga, I play golf! I have learned to focus on what I can manage, instead of the opposite.”
Last year, on a visit to see her doctor, the learned gentleman looked at his patient who had been “giving 120% to everything” for a decade. He then slammed his hand down on the table and decreed, “That’s enough”. Having worked diligently in the field of nursing administration (Ellen is a trained nurse herself), it was time for her to look after her own health and retire from work at 59.
Quick to smile and laugh now, with eyes that convey a sharp intelligence, there have been bumps in the road. Ellen had endured a severe and complex autoimmune illness at the turn of the Millennium requiring surgery and after back surgery to help a long-standing neurological condition in 2022 she has a weakened left leg and mobility problems with that leg and her foot.
Per Arne had been very ill in 2011, hospitalised for an entire year with Guillain-Barré syndrome, where the immune system damages the peripheral nervous system and the body’s muscular structure weakens. Such an aggressive illness necessitates a long hard road to recovery but Per Arne, who had to retire from his role working as a therapist in a youth institution as a result, took every step of that journey with the assistance of Ellen.
In fact, both have helped each other through some dark days, those days when the light ahead inevitably dims and the pressure is felt keenly, when feeling optimistic becomes almost impossible for a time.
Family can provide the priceless love when it matters most. Ellen says: “When you are ill and hospitalised it is tough for the whole family. I have to thank Per Arne and [her son] Ole Kristian especially for being there for me all the time. And I must also thank my parents, sisters and brother for all their help during all the heavy months. When I was in the hospital I was tied up to all kinds of instruments and could not do anything by myself. You do not actually feel very good, so it helped a lot when one of my sisters just washed my hair to help me feel a little better.”
After losing 10 kilos in a fortnight when she was ill, Ellen says the staff at CatoSenteret clinic pushed her during rehab to get stronger (including literally getting back on the bike, an exercise model) and then establish a healthy balance in her life. This would be crucial, to return her first to look after their young son and then a little later help Per Arne through his recovery. Both remain hugely grateful to all the team at CatoSenteret.
The pair had first tried golf in 2000. They now remember when Per Arne was in the CatoSenteret for 10 weeks after the hospital and he started thinking about golf again. “He couldn’t walk, but he said, if I put one of my feet in a skiing boot, maybe I can stand up and you can stay back and just hold me up. So you can see the picture,” Ellen smiles. “We went down to the golf course and we put one of his feet in the boot and I stood back and he was trying to hit the ball, but it didn’t work, but we were laughing; he wanted to try and I wanted to try.”
Ellen values the game so much because they can play it together. “Golf is a very big part of our lives, a very good thing. When you have a health challenge – we see this especially with people that we meet from the clinic – they can start losing some friends during the periods of getting ill. And when you’re not at your 100% health wise, you have to struggle to keep your friends and that is quite a heavy issue. So I can say we have made some new friends through golf, very good friends.”
Ellen, a tall right handed player with a smooth swing off a 17 golf handicap, also loves the individual test of the game, that competitive edge, which combines so well with the social side.
“Golf is like a Kinder Egg, it’s more than one thing. I love being active, I love being social, but I also need time for myself. It’s a very good mental thing because I have learned that I have to have focus. This is my meditation and that is why I also have good mental health.
“I love going out there, seeing the birds and the bees and the nature. And I also enjoy the competition because I think I have a competition mind.
“I love meeting new people and talking to them. And it’s so nice that we are different, that we’re not alike and we can learn so much from each other. That is the most perfect thing about golf.”
Apart from becoming her Club Champion in 2023, Ellen started playing in G4D (golf for the disabled) tournaments in recent times in Norway and immediately enjoyed the welcoming atmosphere of events staged by the Norwegian Golf Federation (NGF), supported by EDGA. More tournaments followed and Ellen would qualify in September 2024 – through her place in the World Ranking for Golfers with Disability – for the Net category of the RSM European Play-offs at North Hants Golf Club in the south of England.
Ellen says: “It was really exciting and I was exhausted when we came home because there were so many moments and games and lovely people. So the whole thing, it was spectacular.”
Members of their wider family have been thinking about golf for the first time because of the positivity of Ellen and Per Arne, relatives of all ages have been welcome to join them on the course – one day last year she recalls 26 family members sharing the fairways – and three of the younger boys are now hooked. At this point Ellen makes spacial mention of the “fantastic” members and staff at Soon Golfklubb and Soon Golfbane and the great condition of that course (though when Ellen was talking to us from Spain in January the fairways back home were under one metre of snow).
Since taking her step to retire from work, the Larsens have been travelling to Spain for the winter months (both have to be careful with their footing in the snow and ice). The sunshine around Malaga does them good, including enjoying plenty of golf. This year’s journey followed a season which saw around 200 rehabilitation patients coming from the CatoSenteret clinic every second Thursday afternoon to enjoy two hours of play, coaching or practise. In total, Ellen and Per Arne have clocked up 300 hours of volunteer coaching for new players, supporting the Norwegian Golf Federation to get individuals of all ages golfing.
“People with different challenges and illnesses come to visit us at the club from CatoSenteret, and we give them an inspiring and fun introduction to golf with different exercises. Having been a patient there, I really enjoy giving something back. We also want to show people that we can play golf even if we all have different challenges.
“It’s so good because you see some of them coming to us and they say, oh, no, no, I have never played golf before. I won’t do this with my body. But when they stay for two hours and have tried golf, they say, wow, that was fun, maybe I can do this. I can actually think about this, maybe this can be something for me.”
Ellen and Per Arne were invited to a recent anniversary of the CatoSenteret clinic and when they spoke about how important the golf has been for patients it led to an emotional response from many people present, making Ellen and Per Arne intensely proud of their volunteering work. They have helped so many people connected with CatoSenteret, just as they were helped to begin with. Ellen says love and care can go such a long way, helping people to get back that sense of optimism, to enjoy life to the full, and thrive through golf.
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