A King among friends

The millennium captain's drive-in at Portmarnock GC had to be postponed from January 2nd, while Joe King grappled with the aftermath of five hours' surgery on his back. But next time around, a truly remarkable man is determined to keep the appointment.

The fact that King is now set to drive in on March 5th, speaks volumes not only for his own courage, but for the admirable pragmatism of the country's premier club. When naming his successor last autumn, the 1999 captain Gary McShane gave the matter the serious consideration it warranted. Then he made his decision.

It meant that King, who has been seriously disabled since sustaining a ruptured disc in his lower back in April 1995, had achieved one of the most cherished ambitions in Irish golf. "To come from a no-hope situation to such an elevated position in the golfing world, is quite astonishing," he conceded yesterday.

Yet no one who knows this one-time hurler from Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny, can be surprised. The simple fact is that King's amazing courage and determination have profoundly enriched all those with whom he has made contact, certainly in recent years.

After initial surgery in 1995, he spent six months in the National Rehabilitation Centre. Among other things, he was told he would never walk again unaided, and that golf was totally out of the question. It was a devastating blow to a golfer who had been a three-handicapper for 20 years and was playing off five at the time of his collapse.

The medical experts had not reckoned, however, on their patient's indomitable spirit. By April 1996, after spending the previous six months in a wheelchair, King was walking with crutches. He then progressed to sticks.

"In November of that year, I started thinking of playing golf again," he recalled. "But there was a problem: I couldn't stand unaided." By that stage, King had a 40 per cent paralysis from the waist to the knees and was 90 per cent paralysed from there down. It meant that when the sticks were taken away, he couldn't stand. And if he couldn't stand; he couldn't play golf.

That was when he discovered that if he knelt, he could "walk" on his knees. And as a former skiier, he hit on the idea of devising something similar to a boot, which would lock his knees and lower legs into a rigid position. A bit like an able-bodied person having their legs tied together.

The upshot was that he invented carbon sleeves which sat underneath the foot and effectively encased each leg to above the knee. And they could be worn inside a golf shoe.

Thus equipped, King tentatively resumed his cherished pastime in January 1997. For their part, Portmarnock responded by arranging through the Leinster Branch to have his handicap extended to 20, though it seemed a pointless gesture at the time. As it happened, King's rivals would soon take a very different view.

Starting off 20 in April of that year and finishing the tournament off 15 in August, he won the Portmarnock Gold Medal matchplay tournament. Incredibly, he was down to nine in 1998 and continued playing well enough last year to shoot a homeward journey of level-par gross, when capturing his club's Senior Open tournament.

Essentially, he had become a hands player. "People would ask me how I managed to score, and I would explain that I had learned the value of a good short game. Having played off a low handicap for many years, this was the best part of my game. And once I could get somewhere close to a green in regulation, I considered myself to be in the scoring zone."

But there were further trials ahead. In the bitterest of ironies, his acceptance of the Portmarnock captaincy happened to coincide with a recurrence of the back problem.

So he found himself back in a consultant's rooms being told that there was a stenonis in his lumbar region, which was putting pressure on the spinal cord. As a consequence, the power was rapidly disappearing from the muscles in his legs. Further surgery was necessary.

So it was that he underwent a second, major operation on his back in December, four days after Portmarnock's annual general meeting, where King was formally installed as the millennium captain. Obviously the drive-in had to be postponed, but the important thing was that the surgery was successful.

"I cannot speak highly enough about the support and consideration of everybody at the club," he said. "In my darkest moments, when I couldn't imagine what I was going to do for the remainder of my life, golf represented a lifeline, however remote. And my colleagues at Portmarnock gave me all the encouragement I needed."

He went on: "After Gary offered me the captaincy, I had to think about it before reaching a decision. I had to consider the fact that at official receptions and various other functions, I wouldn't be able to stand for more than a few minutes. And I had to consider my wife and the implications for her.

"Eventually, in accepting the honour, I suppose it came down to the game itself. Once golf gets into your blood, there's no escape."

King is currently exercising with five-kilo weights to build up the limited strength in his fragile legs. And unlike the first operation five years ago, he has progressed rapidly from crutches to sticks. Still, he's not prepared to make any predictions about the captain's drive-in on March 5th.

During our chat, he reminded me that I once played golf with him in Connemara. And despite his own reticence, I can already imagine the scene at Portmarnock less than five weeks' hence. It will be a scene when the many admirers of this amazing man, will bear witness to a wonderful triumph of the human spirit.