After an early start, I find myself sitting in the clubhouse at The Ridge Golf Club near Maidstone in Kent with photographer Howard Boylan awaiting the arrival of my playing companion. It will be a day of firsts for me: the first time I’ve played this course even though it’s less than an hour from home; the first time I’ve met someone from Nepal; and the first time I’ve played with a double below-the-knee amputee.
I’m feeling abnormally nervous for someone who has been doing this job for 25 years, but Kushal Limbu quickly puts me at ease when he walks in with a warm smile. Soon we’re standing on the first tee as the rain begins to fall steadily and the proposed 18-hole match is hastily shortened to nine. But that doesn’t matter – I’m not really here to write about the golf we played that day but rather about this extraordinary man’s tale of tragedy, rehabilitation, resilience, determination, achievement and more.
For the record, Kushal outdrives me on the 1st (not the only time) and calmly rolls a 60-footer stone-dead on the final hole to seal a 1-up victory. Such gutsiness in a non life-and-death situation comes as no surprise from a man who, during his time as a Gurkha in Afghanistan, faced life-and-death situations that were all too real.
(Image credit: Howard Boylan)
Life-changing moment
Kushal grew up in a military family. His father, uncle and grandfather all served in the Gurkhas and Kushal always wanted to follow in their footsteps. He joined the British army in 2002. Like many, the big appeal was to see the world, with any darker thoughts of what a military career could potentially entail pushed to one side. “I don’t think I thought about that,” he tells me. “You’re just thinking about joining. Once I joined and did my training, obviously I started to understand the reality of what could be or what could happen.”
Tragically for Kushal, what could happen did happen on his second tour of Afghanistan in 2008. He takes up the story of the fateful day that changed his life in his mid-20s: “I’d been there about a month. I was attached to this tank regiment. As we were coming back from a patrol, we were inside the tank and it was blown up by a big pressure-pad IED (improvised explosive device).
“I lost both legs, but unfortunately we lost one of my good friends in that same incident. He was sitting next to me, like you and me are sitting here. I was flown back to the UK the following day and had so many surgeries that I…
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