Latest news with #GregNorman
New York Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
As LIV Golf reapplies for world ranking points, Bryson DeChambeau has ideas for how the league should change
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Changes could be coming to LIV Golf as the league again attempts to gain world ranking points, reapplying for Official World Golf Ranking recognition on Friday. LIV's biggest superstar, Bryson DeChambeau, thinks he knows what changes the start-up tour must make to be ranked against the world's best — a process that is integral for LIV players' ability to play in the four majors. Advertisement 'Definitely relegation for sure, more pathways into LIV,' DeChambeau said on Tuesday ahead of The Open. 'I think a global tour, more association to a global tour would be great for a feeder system into LIV. Those things, I think, could help quite a bit.' Currently, LIV players only receive world ranking points when they compete in the four major championships, as well as on the Asian Tour and DP World Tour. But if the latest OWGR application is accepted, the skill of LIV players would be much more accurately reflected in the world standings — for example, Jon Rahm is currently ranked No. 2 in DataGolf's rankings. He's No. 72 on the OWGR. 'I don't know, do you guys think we should get points? I would say that we've got some pretty good players over there,' DeChambeau continued. The 54-hole team-format league formerly applied for OWGR recognition under CEO Greg Norman, but their application was rejected in 2023. The conflicting interests of a team and individual competition happening simultaneously and the lack of a merit-based system to gain access to the tour were cited as shortcomings. Now, it appears that under newly instated CEO Scott O'Neil, those sticking points might have been reevaluated internally. It has long been rumored that LIV would need to connect with a feeder tour of sorts, so their model cannot be deemed a closed shop by the OWGR board. Phil Mickelson, a LIV member, recently shared a hypothetical question on X fueling that theory. Mickelson proposed that LIV's 14-event schedule become an elevated events series in participation with a full-field 35-event tour that operates year-round. 'Where would those additional players come from, and what would happen to the PGA Tour then?' Mickelson wrote. LIV's application will be evaluated by the OWGR board, which is led by newly appointed chairman, CBS analyst and former Masters champion Trevor Immelman. O'Neill's decision to resubmit undoubtedly implies that the league is considering significant changes that it was not previously open to. Advertisement The league's relegation system has also been murky since its inception. Players finishing outside the top 48 in the league's standings are in danger of losing their spot on LIV. Previously, team captains were exempt from this process, but that rule was done away with in 2024. Ian Poulter, a captain, and Mito Pereira are in danger of being relegated if they don't improve their status this season.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Lynch: New LIV boss Scott O'Neil sounds a lot like Greg Norman. That's not a compliment
Like most visitors to the Open at Royal Portrush, Scott O'Neil will probably pick up a few choice phrases particular to Northern Ireland. He may already be familiar with some given that his employees as CEO of LIV include several players and caddies from these parts, though it's doubtful they've told him to 'wind your neck in.' Translation: give it a rest, zip it, just hush. Advertisement Like his predecessor, Greg Norman, O'Neil sounds like a man energetically trying to manufacture for his organization a reality that doesn't exist and suggest a momentum it doesn't enjoy. On a recent podcast hosted by one of his paid supplicants, O'Neil said that LIV will be the dominant global force in golf. 'I think the PGA Tour will always have the stronghold in the US … and I think we'll be the dominant player in the world.' His assertion went both unchallenged and unexplained. If there's a single metric that points toward such a rosy future, evidence of it was neither offered nor requested. About the only yardstick O'Neil did cite was marital harmony. 'We had a lot of wives — I'd say, no fewer than a dozen — come up independently, unsolicited, and say, 'My husband's never been happier. Whatever you're doing, keep doing it.' That's nice.' Pay and perks do make guys happy about having dropped anchor, as it were. O'Neil went on to mention that he's friends with Brian Rolapp, the newly appointed CEO of PGA Tour Enterprises and Jay Monahan's de facto successor. He said Rolapp would likely be unable to accept his invitation to attend a LIV event because it would become too much of a circus — understandable since LIV tournaments are known for a sober focus on competition — but he expected they'd catch up at the Open, which Rolapp isn't actually attending. Advertisement By the time O'Neil added that he and his opposite number 'go to the same church' (as in Latter-day Saints, not as in the same structure), the sweaty desperation for relevance was all too apparent. Which is wholly on brand for LIV these days. From L-R: Greg Norman, South Australia's Premier Peter Malinauskas, and LIV Golf CEO Scott O'Neil pose as they announce Adelaide securing the tournament until 2031, during the final day of the LIV Golf Adelaide at the Grange Golf Club in Adelaide on February 16, 2025. Take the circuit's decision last week to resubmit an application to be recognized by the Official World Golf Ranking. When LIV's first bid was rejected in October 2023, the OWGR made clear that field size, the lack of a cut and playing only 54 holes weren't barriers. It was the absence of meritocracy — limited pathways and players being exempt from relegation, no matter how execrable their performances — and the staging of team and individual events simultaneously. 'LIV Golf is committed to working together with the Official World Golf Ranking and its board to ensure the very best players are competing in the game's most prestigious events,' O'Neil said in a statement. 'We are confident our application addresses the outstanding questions that exist to support a more global, all-encompassing, and accurate ranking system. We are hopeful the review and approval process can progress ahead of the 2026 major season.' Advertisement Nothing about specific material changes by LIV to address non-compliance, more a haughty call for the rules to be rewritten and quickly. An absence of particulars is typical of LIV announcements that are intended to simulate success that doesn't exist by any commercial measurement. Like last week's deal with HSBC, a company with significant interests in Saudi Arabia. HSBC will become LIV's official banking partner — just totting up the league's losses should guarantee employment for many — but there was no detail on the deal's duration (other than 'multi-year') or a suggestion that money was changing hands. HSBC will be a 'presenting partner' of a segment in LIV broadcasts which, the press release noted, 'has a potential reach of over 875 million households across more than 120 international markets.' The 'potential' in that claim is working harder than Donald Trump's haircare product. O'Neil declined to be drawn on LIV's player contracts, some of which expire later this year, notably Dustin Johnson's. His obvious lack of motivation notwithstanding, expect Johnson to be re-signed with much fanfare. It will be yet another purely performative exercise, a sleight of hand designed to create a narrative that LIV is doubling down when it's really just trying to buy time in hopes that Rolapp and the PGA Tour's board decide to compromise their product by incorporating LIV's as part of a deal they don't need. Anything to imply a lengthy runway ahead for LIV that isn't supported by economic tailwinds. As the locals might say in Portrush, catch yourself on, Scott. This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Lynch: New LIV boss Scott O'Neil sounds a lot like Greg Norman
CNN
5 days ago
- Sport
- CNN
From sleeping on a golf course to turning pro: How Issa Nlareb rediscovered his love of the game after illness
Watching Issa Nlareb's swing, you'd never know he didn't take a golf lesson until five years after turning professional. For 13 years, observing others and reading two-time major champion Greg Norman's book were the closest things the Cameroonian had to formal instruction. Nlareb was just 11 years old when his mom died. Living on the streets near a golf course, he began collecting balls to earn money to survive, eventually picking up the game himself and becoming a caddie. However, his life dramatically changed in 2018 when he contracted bacterial meningitis while at a tournament in Egypt. The golfer developed sepsis, fell into a coma and required the amputation of both legs and most of his fingers. He wasn't sure he'd ever play the sport again. Life has thrown a lot of challenges Nlareb's way in his 34 years, yet while speaking to CNN Sports, he's as laid-back and confident as ever, believing he can be one of the top disabled golfers in the world. Nlareb lived with his dad and stepmom in a house near Yaoundé Golf Club in Cameroon's capital after his mother's death, leaving school and taking care of four step-siblings before running away from home a year later. Eleven years old, 'pissed off' at the situation and living on the streets, most nights he was picked up by the police and brought in to sleep in the station. One evening, though, he ran. 'I hid myself in the golf course. When I stand up in the morning in the golf course, I was looking around me and I found a golf ball. And I took two golf balls, I went out, and I see the golf course. When I see the golf course, I was like, 'Wow,'' Nlareb said. Impressed by the scale and grandeur of the course and thinking the balls belonged to the players on the hole, he washed and offered them to the men. They gave him a dollar in return. 'That was my first contact with golf,' Nlareb said. With no school, he spent a lot of his time watching the players at Yaoundé Golf Club, thinking about how the players could improve their shots. He visualized this all without owning a club or having played a round. There was one man – who Nlareb recalls as 'Mr. Davou' – who attempted the same shot day after day on the 13th hole. 'There's out of bounds to the right, water in front of the green and behind the green. So, the guy was trying to go over the water every time and he lost some balls,' Nlareb said, smiling at the memory. 'I was laughing, and he say, 'Stop laughing. What can you do in this position?'' Despite never having swung a club, the 11-year-old had been learning the game since earning that first dollar and decided to offer some wisdom: 'I say, 'You got to play to the left, and you come back right to play the green.' And he said, 'Come, we make a challenge.'' Davou handed him a three iron – not an easy club for even a more seasoned golfer. But Nlareb was up for the challenge and made it onto the green following the path he advised Davou to take. His success earned him his first golf club – that hard-to-hit three iron. Nlareb continued collecting and cleaning balls, practicing with his iron and developed friendships with the golfers. He often helped players aim shots and find their balls on the hilly course. All that time, he was on his own from age 11 to 17; no family, no school, just the money he could earn at markets and on the course. It was only once an aunt learned of his whereabouts and that he hadn't heard from his father in six years that Nlareb returned home and went back to school to take his caddie exams. 'I was playing golf when I was 12, but I was not playing the regular golf like stroke play, 18 holes. No, I was playing three holes, one hole, half a hole sometimes,' Nlareb remembered. Caddying at Yaoundé Golf Club allowed him to play complete rounds once a week – usually Mondays after events finished for the day. Things soon accelerated after that. 'After a year, I was number one of the caddies,' Nlareb said. 'So, I turned pro in 2009 in Yaoundé.' He didn't buy his first set of clubs until after turning professional. 'My dream was to be the best player in the world, but my other was to beat Tiger Woods,' Nlareb said. '(But) I realized that there's a big difference between the course Tiger Woods is playing and the course I play. … So, I (got) my first golf lesson when I was 24 (in 2015),' Nlareb told CNN Sports. After more than five years competing on African tours, Nlareb set goals for himself to slowly work toward those dreams. In 2015, he decided to try his hand at qualifying for the third division circuit in Europe, the Alps Tour. He had three young children and, with two quick wins at the Gabon and Senegal Opens, was at the peak of his career and personal life up to that point. That is until he fell ill at the Ein Bay Open in Egypt in February 2018. He awoke from a five-day coma to learn he had contracted bacterial meningitis and had developed septic shock. A terrified Nlareb was told he needed to have both legs above the knee and both arms above the elbow amputated. 'I refused because I was so afraid,' Nlareb said. 'I say, 'Why?' and I say, 'No, no, no, don't do that. Leave me dead.'' The fear was all-encompassing: Nlareb couldn't imagine a life with no arms or legs. He waited a month until his visa in Egypt ended and transferred to a Cameroonian hospital. There, he once again heard a prognosis he wasn't ready to accept. His stepmother was working in Belgium at the time and called local hospitals to see if they would take Nlareb's case. He flew to Brussels where his latest doctor sat him down and explained amputation was his only viable option, although things had slightly improved. 'He wrote everything (down for) me. He showed me. And I (saw) that difference between the last two months where I would get to be amputated and where I would be amputated right now.' Three months after waking from his coma, Nlareb underwent an operation and had both legs below the knee and most of his fingers amputated. In his recovery process, the doctor explained the importance of taking things slow – starting with just 30 minutes a day of getting used to his prosthetics and building up from there. However, after a further three months in isolation to rebuild his immune system, he was eager to establish his new normal as soon as possible. 'When they put me in the prosthetics, I walked all day long. But it was a big mistake,' he remembered. 'I wore off my skin. I was not able anymore to put the prosthetics on my feet. 'There'd be pain for me. I was tight in my heart. I cry.' Nlareb refused to think about golf after his amputations: 'I forget about golf. I give up.' He went 'back (to Cameroon) to take care of my family, enjoy my life,' adding that he didn't 'want to play anymore golf because I was so sad.' However, his friends had other plans. They forced him back onto a course a couple of months post-surgery to help his physical and mental recovery. His first swing back on the course went '50 meters (55 yards) with one hand.' For the 6-foot-4-inch Nlareb, who was used to crushing his drives well over 200 yards before his illness, it was a difficult thing to take. It was at that point that he turned his focus to teaching. He went to school for two years to grow and develop as a golf teaching professional and began coaching a team in Cameroon: 'I learned how to share my passion with people.' However, a tournament at the end of 2019 left him fuming. 'They played so bad. … I was so pissed off,' Nlareb said. 'How'd they do that? Even me, (hitting) 50 meters, I can make bogey in the hole. How can they play so bad?' Angry and disappointed, he didn't expect his then five-year-old daughter to find the solution. 'She smiled and said, 'Dad, you need to play golf,'' Nlareb recalled. His daughter suggested wrapping a strap around his hands and club to give him the power and grip to swing with two hands again. 'It was eight o'clock – in Cameroon, night comes at seven – I was like, 'Why don't you come with (me) and we run and go directly to golf?'' The father and daughter spent all night at the course. In 2019, Nlareb returned to the pro game via the African Golf Tour. Two years later, now residing in France, he made a remarkable comeback, making the cut in the very Alps Tour tournament he contracted meningitis three years earlier. The World Golf rankings for people with disabilities was created in 2019, a year after Nlareb's illness and amputations, while the Golf for the Disabled (G4D) Tour didn't launch until February 2022. Disability golf events are still in their infancy. Last year, Nlareb played in the third annual US Adaptive Open – his first time visiting the United States – where he won the multiple limb amputee category and placed fourth overall for men. He won the same category and finished tied for seventh overall this year. What did he earn for twice winning his category and two top-10 finishes? Nothing. 'There is not currently a purse for the U.S. Adaptive Open,' the USGA confirmed in an email to CNN Sports. 'We announced recently that Deloitte will provide financial support in the form of travel-related expense reimbursements to all players in the field this year, and we are incredibly excited about that.' Nlareb estimated it would have cost $10,000 to take part in the US Adaptive Open if he didn't have sponsors and hadn't received an exemption into the tournament due to his result at last summer's edition. 'You pay for your flight ticket. You pay your reservation hotel, your car, and you pay your entry fee,' the eighth-ranked player in the World Ranking for Golfers with Disability said. And he's lucky in that he's received free prosthetics since 2021 after meeting with Alain Montean, the then-president of a prosthetics company. Without these, Nlareb estimated it would cost him $50,000 every two years to replace. The exposure gained from the US Adaptive Open is significant, but paying thousands for events is not sustainable. Nlareb needs to play more golf to gain a following, but he can't play tournaments without sponsors and external funding. It's a vicious cycle that's hard to see a way out of. 'I know I have good level, but it's not that easy without a sponsor because it's very expensive,' Nlareb said. 'Just to register in the event it's very expensive. Today, I'm a dad of three and it's not easy for me to take care of my children and to play my golf.' 'It's a big event. … So to be there, I'm coming close to my dream because from there, the world can know about my story,' the 34-year-old told CNN Sports. 'I need the support. I need the help. And I got a good game. I live for golf. I can't live without golf. Golf is my life.'
CNN
5 days ago
- Sport
- CNN
From sleeping on a golf course to turning pro: How Issa Nlareb rediscovered his love of the game after illness
Watching Issa Nlareb's swing, you'd never know he didn't take a golf lesson until five years after turning professional. For 13 years, observing others and reading two-time major champion Greg Norman's book were the closest things the Cameroonian had to formal instruction. Nlareb was just 11 years old when his mom died. Living on the streets near a golf course, he began collecting balls to earn money to survive, eventually picking up the game himself and becoming a caddie. However, his life dramatically changed in 2018 when he contracted bacterial meningitis while at a tournament in Egypt. The golfer developed sepsis, fell into a coma and required the amputation of both legs and most of his fingers. He wasn't sure he'd ever play the sport again. Life has thrown a lot of challenges Nlareb's way in his 34 years, yet while speaking to CNN Sports, he's as laid-back and confident as ever, believing he can be one of the top disabled golfers in the world. Nlareb lived with his dad and stepmom in a house near Yaoundé Golf Club in Cameroon's capital after his mother's death, leaving school and taking care of four step-siblings before running away from home a year later. Eleven years old, 'pissed off' at the situation and living on the streets, most nights he was picked up by the police and brought in to sleep in the station. One evening, though, he ran. 'I hid myself in the golf course. When I stand up in the morning in the golf course, I was looking around me and I found a golf ball. And I took two golf balls, I went out, and I see the golf course. When I see the golf course, I was like, 'Wow,'' Nlareb said. Impressed by the scale and grandeur of the course and thinking the balls belonged to the players on the hole, he washed and offered them to the men. They gave him a dollar in return. 'That was my first contact with golf,' Nlareb said. With no school, he spent a lot of his time watching the players at Yaoundé Golf Club, thinking about how the players could improve their shots. He visualized this all without owning a club or having played a round. There was one man – who Nlareb recalls as 'Mr. Davou' – who attempted the same shot day after day on the 13th hole. 'There's out of bounds to the right, water in front of the green and behind the green. So, the guy was trying to go over the water every time and he lost some balls,' Nlareb said, smiling at the memory. 'I was laughing, and he say, 'Stop laughing. What can you do in this position?'' Despite never having swung a club, the 11-year-old had been learning the game since earning that first dollar and decided to offer some wisdom: 'I say, 'You got to play to the left, and you come back right to play the green.' And he said, 'Come, we make a challenge.'' Davou handed him a three iron – not an easy club for even a more seasoned golfer. But Nlareb was up for the challenge and made it onto the green following the path he advised Davou to take. His success earned him his first golf club – that hard-to-hit three iron. Nlareb continued collecting and cleaning balls, practicing with his iron and developed friendships with the golfers. He often helped players aim shots and find their balls on the hilly course. All that time, he was on his own from age 11 to 17; no family, no school, just the money he could earn at markets and on the course. It was only once an aunt learned of his whereabouts and that he hadn't heard from his father in six years that Nlareb returned home and went back to school to take his caddie exams. 'I was playing golf when I was 12, but I was not playing the regular golf like stroke play, 18 holes. No, I was playing three holes, one hole, half a hole sometimes,' Nlareb remembered. Caddying at Yaoundé Golf Club allowed him to play complete rounds once a week – usually Mondays after events finished for the day. Things soon accelerated after that. 'After a year, I was number one of the caddies,' Nlareb said. 'So, I turned pro in 2009 in Yaoundé.' He didn't buy his first set of clubs until after turning professional. 'My dream was to be the best player in the world, but my other was to beat Tiger Woods,' Nlareb said. '(But) I realized that there's a big difference between the course Tiger Woods is playing and the course I play. … So, I (got) my first golf lesson when I was 24 (in 2015),' Nlareb told CNN Sports. After more than five years competing on African tours, Nlareb set goals for himself to slowly work toward those dreams. In 2015, he decided to try his hand at qualifying for the third division circuit in Europe, the Alps Tour. He had three young children and, with two quick wins at the Gabon and Senegal Opens, was at the peak of his career and personal life up to that point. That is until he fell ill at the Ein Bay Open in Egypt in February 2018. He awoke from a five-day coma to learn he had contracted bacterial meningitis and had developed septic shock. A terrified Nlareb was told he needed to have both legs above the knee and both arms above the elbow amputated. 'I refused because I was so afraid,' Nlareb said. 'I say, 'Why?' and I say, 'No, no, no, don't do that. Leave me dead.'' The fear was all-encompassing: Nlareb couldn't imagine a life with no arms or legs. He waited a month until his visa in Egypt ended and transferred to a Cameroonian hospital. There, he once again heard a prognosis he wasn't ready to accept. His stepmother was working in Belgium at the time and called local hospitals to see if they would take Nlareb's case. He flew to Brussels where his latest doctor sat him down and explained amputation was his only viable option, although things had slightly improved. 'He wrote everything (down for) me. He showed me. And I (saw) that difference between the last two months where I would get to be amputated and where I would be amputated right now.' Three months after waking from his coma, Nlareb underwent an operation and had both legs below the knee and most of his fingers amputated. In his recovery process, the doctor explained the importance of taking things slow – starting with just 30 minutes a day of getting used to his prosthetics and building up from there. However, after a further three months in isolation to rebuild his immune system, he was eager to establish his new normal as soon as possible. 'When they put me in the prosthetics, I walked all day long. But it was a big mistake,' he remembered. 'I wore off my skin. I was not able anymore to put the prosthetics on my feet. 'There'd be pain for me. I was tight in my heart. I cry.' Nlareb refused to think about golf after his amputations: 'I forget about golf. I give up.' He went 'back (to Cameroon) to take care of my family, enjoy my life,' adding that he didn't 'want to play anymore golf because I was so sad.' However, his friends had other plans. They forced him back onto a course a couple of months post-surgery to help his physical and mental recovery. His first swing back on the course went '50 meters (55 yards) with one hand.' For the 6-foot-4-inch Nlareb, who was used to crushing his drives well over 200 yards before his illness, it was a difficult thing to take. It was at that point that he turned his focus to teaching. He went to school for two years to grow and develop as a golf teaching professional and began coaching a team in Cameroon: 'I learned how to share my passion with people.' However, a tournament at the end of 2019 left him fuming. 'They played so bad. … I was so pissed off,' Nlareb said. 'How'd they do that? Even me, (hitting) 50 meters, I can make bogey in the hole. How can they play so bad?' Angry and disappointed, he didn't expect his then five-year-old daughter to find the solution. 'She smiled and said, 'Dad, you need to play golf,'' Nlareb recalled. His daughter suggested wrapping a strap around his hands and club to give him the power and grip to swing with two hands again. 'It was eight o'clock – in Cameroon, night comes at seven – I was like, 'Why don't you come with (me) and we run and go directly to golf?'' The father and daughter spent all night at the course. In 2019, Nlareb returned to the pro game via the African Golf Tour. Two years later, now residing in France, he made a remarkable comeback, making the cut in the very Alps Tour tournament he contracted meningitis three years earlier. The World Golf rankings for people with disabilities was created in 2019, a year after Nlareb's illness and amputations, while the Golf for the Disabled (G4D) Tour didn't launch until February 2022. Disability golf events are still in their infancy. Last year, Nlareb played in the third annual US Adaptive Open – his first time visiting the United States – where he won the multiple limb amputee category and placed fourth overall for men. He won the same category and finished tied for seventh overall this year. What did he earn for twice winning his category and two top-10 finishes? Nothing. 'There is not currently a purse for the U.S. Adaptive Open,' the USGA confirmed in an email to CNN Sports. 'We announced recently that Deloitte will provide financial support in the form of travel-related expense reimbursements to all players in the field this year, and we are incredibly excited about that.' Nlareb estimated it would have cost $10,000 to take part in the US Adaptive Open if he didn't have sponsors and hadn't received an exemption into the tournament due to his result at last summer's edition. 'You pay for your flight ticket. You pay your reservation hotel, your car, and you pay your entry fee,' the eighth-ranked player in the World Ranking for Golfers with Disability said. And he's lucky in that he's received free prosthetics since 2021 after meeting with Alain Montean, the then-president of a prosthetics company. Without these, Nlareb estimated it would cost him $50,000 every two years to replace. The exposure gained from the US Adaptive Open is significant, but paying thousands for events is not sustainable. Nlareb needs to play more golf to gain a following, but he can't play tournaments without sponsors and external funding. It's a vicious cycle that's hard to see a way out of. 'I know I have good level, but it's not that easy without a sponsor because it's very expensive,' Nlareb said. 'Just to register in the event it's very expensive. Today, I'm a dad of three and it's not easy for me to take care of my children and to play my golf.' 'It's a big event. … So to be there, I'm coming close to my dream because from there, the world can know about my story,' the 34-year-old told CNN Sports. 'I need the support. I need the help. And I got a good game. I live for golf. I can't live without golf. Golf is my life.'
CNN
5 days ago
- Sport
- CNN
From sleeping on a golf course to turning pro: How Issa Nlareb rediscovered his love of the game after illness
Watching Issa Nlareb's swing, you'd never know he didn't take a golf lesson until five years after turning professional. For 13 years, observing others and reading two-time major champion Greg Norman's book were the closest things the Cameroonian had to formal instruction. Nlareb was just 11 years old when his mom died. Living on the streets near a golf course, he began collecting balls to earn money to survive, eventually picking up the game himself and becoming a caddie. However, his life dramatically changed in 2018 when he contracted bacterial meningitis while at a tournament in Egypt. The golfer developed sepsis, fell into a coma and required the amputation of both legs and most of his fingers. He wasn't sure he'd ever play the sport again. Life has thrown a lot of challenges Nlareb's way in his 34 years, yet while speaking to CNN Sports, he's as laid-back and confident as ever, believing he can be one of the top disabled golfers in the world. Nlareb lived with his dad and stepmom in a house near Yaoundé Golf Club in Cameroon's capital after his mother's death, leaving school and taking care of four step-siblings before running away from home a year later. Eleven years old, 'pissed off' at the situation and living on the streets, most nights he was picked up by the police and brought in to sleep in the station. One evening, though, he ran. 'I hid myself in the golf course. When I stand up in the morning in the golf course, I was looking around me and I found a golf ball. And I took two golf balls, I went out, and I see the golf course. When I see the golf course, I was like, 'Wow,'' Nlareb said. Impressed by the scale and grandeur of the course and thinking the balls belonged to the players on the hole, he washed and offered them to the men. They gave him a dollar in return. 'That was my first contact with golf,' Nlareb said. With no school, he spent a lot of his time watching the players at Yaoundé Golf Club, thinking about how the players could improve their shots. He visualized this all without owning a club or having played a round. There was one man – who Nlareb recalls as 'Mr. Davou' – who attempted the same shot day after day on the 13th hole. 'There's out of bounds to the right, water in front of the green and behind the green. So, the guy was trying to go over the water every time and he lost some balls,' Nlareb said, smiling at the memory. 'I was laughing, and he say, 'Stop laughing. What can you do in this position?'' Despite never having swung a club, the 11-year-old had been learning the game since earning that first dollar and decided to offer some wisdom: 'I say, 'You got to play to the left, and you come back right to play the green.' And he said, 'Come, we make a challenge.'' Davou handed him a three iron – not an easy club for even a more seasoned golfer. But Nlareb was up for the challenge and made it onto the green following the path he advised Davou to take. His success earned him his first golf club – that hard-to-hit three iron. Nlareb continued collecting and cleaning balls, practicing with his iron and developed friendships with the golfers. He often helped players aim shots and find their balls on the hilly course. All that time, he was on his own from age 11 to 17; no family, no school, just the money he could earn at markets and on the course. It was only once an aunt learned of his whereabouts and that he hadn't heard from his father in six years that Nlareb returned home and went back to school to take his caddie exams. 'I was playing golf when I was 12, but I was not playing the regular golf like stroke play, 18 holes. No, I was playing three holes, one hole, half a hole sometimes,' Nlareb remembered. Caddying at Yaoundé Golf Club allowed him to play complete rounds once a week – usually Mondays after events finished for the day. Things soon accelerated after that. 'After a year, I was number one of the caddies,' Nlareb said. 'So, I turned pro in 2009 in Yaoundé.' He didn't buy his first set of clubs until after turning professional. 'My dream was to be the best player in the world, but my other was to beat Tiger Woods,' Nlareb said. '(But) I realized that there's a big difference between the course Tiger Woods is playing and the course I play. … So, I (got) my first golf lesson when I was 24 (in 2015),' Nlareb told CNN Sports. After more than five years competing on African tours, Nlareb set goals for himself to slowly work toward those dreams. In 2015, he decided to try his hand at qualifying for the third division circuit in Europe, the Alps Tour. He had three young children and, with two quick wins at the Gabon and Senegal Opens, was at the peak of his career and personal life up to that point. That is until he fell ill at the Ein Bay Open in Egypt in February 2018. He awoke from a five-day coma to learn he had contracted bacterial meningitis and had developed septic shock. A terrified Nlareb was told he needed to have both legs above the knee and both arms above the elbow amputated. 'I refused because I was so afraid,' Nlareb said. 'I say, 'Why?' and I say, 'No, no, no, don't do that. Leave me dead.'' The fear was all-encompassing: Nlareb couldn't imagine a life with no arms or legs. He waited a month until his visa in Egypt ended and transferred to a Cameroonian hospital. There, he once again heard a prognosis he wasn't ready to accept. His stepmother was working in Belgium at the time and called local hospitals to see if they would take Nlareb's case. He flew to Brussels where his latest doctor sat him down and explained amputation was his only viable option, although things had slightly improved. 'He wrote everything (down for) me. He showed me. And I (saw) that difference between the last two months where I would get to be amputated and where I would be amputated right now.' Three months after waking from his coma, Nlareb underwent an operation and had both legs below the knee and most of his fingers amputated. In his recovery process, the doctor explained the importance of taking things slow – starting with just 30 minutes a day of getting used to his prosthetics and building up from there. However, after a further three months in isolation to rebuild his immune system, he was eager to establish his new normal as soon as possible. 'When they put me in the prosthetics, I walked all day long. But it was a big mistake,' he remembered. 'I wore off my skin. I was not able anymore to put the prosthetics on my feet. 'There'd be pain for me. I was tight in my heart. I cry.' Nlareb refused to think about golf after his amputations: 'I forget about golf. I give up.' He went 'back (to Cameroon) to take care of my family, enjoy my life,' adding that he didn't 'want to play anymore golf because I was so sad.' However, his friends had other plans. They forced him back onto a course a couple of months post-surgery to help his physical and mental recovery. His first swing back on the course went '50 meters (55 yards) with one hand.' For the 6-foot-4-inch Nlareb, who was used to crushing his drives well over 200 yards before his illness, it was a difficult thing to take. It was at that point that he turned his focus to teaching. He went to school for two years to grow and develop as a golf teaching professional and began coaching a team in Cameroon: 'I learned how to share my passion with people.' However, a tournament at the end of 2019 left him fuming. 'They played so bad. … I was so pissed off,' Nlareb said. 'How'd they do that? Even me, (hitting) 50 meters, I can make bogey in the hole. How can they play so bad?' Angry and disappointed, he didn't expect his then five-year-old daughter to find the solution. 'She smiled and said, 'Dad, you need to play golf,'' Nlareb recalled. His daughter suggested wrapping a strap around his hands and club to give him the power and grip to swing with two hands again. 'It was eight o'clock – in Cameroon, night comes at seven – I was like, 'Why don't you come with (me) and we run and go directly to golf?'' The father and daughter spent all night at the course. In 2019, Nlareb returned to the pro game via the African Golf Tour. Two years later, now residing in France, he made a remarkable comeback, making the cut in the very Alps Tour tournament he contracted meningitis three years earlier. The World Golf rankings for people with disabilities was created in 2019, a year after Nlareb's illness and amputations, while the Golf for the Disabled (G4D) Tour didn't launch until February 2022. Disability golf events are still in their infancy. Last year, Nlareb played in the third annual US Adaptive Open – his first time visiting the United States – where he won the multiple limb amputee category and placed fourth overall for men. He won the same category and finished tied for seventh overall this year. What did he earn for twice winning his category and two top-10 finishes? Nothing. 'There is not currently a purse for the U.S. Adaptive Open,' the USGA confirmed in an email to CNN Sports. 'We announced recently that Deloitte will provide financial support in the form of travel-related expense reimbursements to all players in the field this year, and we are incredibly excited about that.' Nlareb estimated it would have cost $10,000 to take part in the US Adaptive Open if he didn't have sponsors and hadn't received an exemption into the tournament due to his result at last summer's edition. 'You pay for your flight ticket. You pay your reservation hotel, your car, and you pay your entry fee,' the eighth-ranked player in the World Ranking for Golfers with Disability said. And he's lucky in that he's received free prosthetics since 2021 after meeting with Alain Montean, the then-president of a prosthetics company. Without these, Nlareb estimated it would cost him $50,000 every two years to replace. The exposure gained from the US Adaptive Open is significant, but paying thousands for events is not sustainable. Nlareb needs to play more golf to gain a following, but he can't play tournaments without sponsors and external funding. It's a vicious cycle that's hard to see a way out of. 'I know I have good level, but it's not that easy without a sponsor because it's very expensive,' Nlareb said. 'Just to register in the event it's very expensive. Today, I'm a dad of three and it's not easy for me to take care of my children and to play my golf.' 'It's a big event. … So to be there, I'm coming close to my dream because from there, the world can know about my story,' the 34-year-old told CNN Sports. 'I need the support. I need the help. And I got a good game. I live for golf. I can't live without golf. Golf is my life.'
