Where It All Began
Golf has been part of my life since I was old enough to hold a club. It has taught me more about focus, preparation and handling pressure than almost anything else, and the parallels with surgery run deeper than most people might expect.
I grew up in Wales watching my MamGu, the Welsh word for grandmother, and my mother play golf at county level. Both were single-figure handicappers, which is a serious standard, and watching them compete gave me an early education in what it actually takes to play the game well. My mother later became a member of Royal Porthcawl, one of the finest links courses in Wales, and I hold a country membership there today.
Getting Serious About the Game
My wife Lauren is an international hockey player and triathlete, and one of the most useful things she ever said to me was that training and practising are not the same thing. Training is volume. Practice is deliberate, purposeful repetition aimed at specific improvement. That distinction changed how I approached golf entirely.
During my London surgical rotation I joined Hampton Court Palace Golf Club, won the men's championship knockout, and cut my handicap from 10 to 5 in a single year. Moving to Oxford, I joined Frilford Heath Golf Club and committed to practising properly. My handicap came down to low single figures, I played several years in the scratch league first team, captained the side in 2008, and won the net club championship and the scratch foursomes knockout twice. I was also part of the Ferndown Fox winning team that year.
Playing Around the World
In 2009 a surgical fellowship in Sydney gave me the opportunity to play some of the best courses in Australia and New Zealand, including New South Wales, Royal Sydney, Barnbougle Dunes, Joondalup, the Australian, Cape Kidnappers and Jack's Point. Golf travels well. It is one of the few sports where you can arrive somewhere new and immediately have a game, a conversation and a connection.
The Berkshire Golf Club and a Historic Handicap
I am currently a member of the Berkshire Golf Club in Ascot, where I play off a handicap of +1. All three of my sons are members there too, which I take considerable satisfaction from.
In 2020, I won the club's Autumn Meeting shooting a gross 66 on the Red course. This coincided with the UK's transition to the World Handicap System, and a statistical quirk in the changeover resulted in me being assigned a handicap of +7.6. At that point, it was officially the lowest handicap in the United Kingdom. It has since settled to a more accurate +1, but playing off scratch had been an ambition since boyhood and it was a milestone worth noting.
Open Championship Regional Qualifying
That handicap made me eligible for Regional Qualifying for The Open Championship, which I entered at Hollinwell and Minchinhampton Golf Club. I did not qualify. The standard at that level is exceptionally high and it is worth being honest about that, but I shot decent scores, learned a great deal, and it remains one of the best competitive experiences I have had.
Teaching the Boys
I started introducing my three sons to golf as soon as they could hold a club. The approach was deliberate but low-key. Rather than formal lessons with scorecards and expectations attached, I focused on grip, posture and the basics of a good swing in a way that felt like play rather than instruction. They were learning without knowing they were being taught.
All three are now members at the Berkshire. Whatever they do with the game from here is up to them, but golf has already given them things that are harder to teach directly: patience, honesty, the ability to reset after a bad hole and keep going. In a family where competitive sport is taken seriously, those qualities matter beyond the course.
Golf and Surgery: The Parallels
I talk about the connection between golf and surgery with my orthopaedic trainees regularly, because the lessons genuinely transfer.
Consistent process produces consistent results. Whether you are setting up to a golf shot or preparing for an operation, doing things the same methodical way every time reduces the chance of error. Shortcuts in preparation show up in the outcome.
Respect the risk. In golf, ignoring the bunker or the water and trying to be too clever compounds your problems quickly. The same is true in surgery. When the safe option is available, take it.
When things go wrong, and they will, what matters is composure and the ability to recover. A bad lie, an unexpected finding mid-operation, these situations require the same response: stay calm, draw on your preparation, adapt, and carry on. Falling apart is not an option in either setting.
Golf has made me more disciplined, more patient and more comfortable under pressure. Whether that has made me a better surgeon or whether surgery made me better at golf is a question I have never quite resolved. Most likely the two have pushed each other along.