Par excellence

Despite that, he is one of the world’s best onearmed golfers and excels in a number of other sports. In the latest of our Local Heroes series, Owen Amos meets him.

THE Northern Echo’s archives are packed with stories of young sports stars, from footballers to Frisbee throwers, rowers to rugby players.

Few excel in more than one sport.

Only one excels in more than one sport despite having, from birth, one arm.

Step forward Darlington lad Darren Grey, one of the world’s best one-armed golfers, a former national-level swimmer and a taekwondo red belt, too. And yes, his mates – when they’re taking the mick – call him Bandit.

Darren, 23, was born with the lower half of his left arm missing, but in the way youngsters do, he dealt with it. “I adapted round it, I grew up with it,” he says. “If anything, it pushed me to do more stuff. I always give something a try, even if I’m not sure I can do it.”

Any stick? “I got it now and then, but it’s part of growing up,” he says. And kids, I suggest, will always pick on each other anyway – whether it’s the fat kid, the skinny kid, or the one-armed kid. “Exactly,” he says. “That’s my way of looking at it.”

Sport, he says, was his main focus during school; a chance to prove himself equal to his two-armed pals. Although, of course, Darren didn’t prove himself equal. He did far, far more than that. By the time he was 11, and joining secondary school, he was one of the country’s top disabled swimmers, breaking three records. He was offered a place in the national set-up, but, like countless young swimmers, found the training too much.

“The training was tough – three times a day,”

he says. “I did nationals, got offered the chance to do it, but the training was too much. I was going into secondary school at the time. It’s a tiring sport.”

MEANWHILE, in the first date of a beautiful relationship, he swung his first golf club. “I first started going round the field with my dad,” he says. “He cut down a club for me, so I could get used to swinging it. When I was 11 I got a membership at Darlington Golf Club. I got a few lessons from the pro, and the pro at Stressholme, and it progressed from there.”

In 1999, aged 14, came another monumental first: a first appearance in The Northern Echo.

Darren, at Darlington Golf Club’s ninth, hit a hole-in-one. “It’s only the second time I’ve ever got the ball straight onto the green on that hole,” he said. And the secret of his one-armed success? “I turn my hips more than most players,”

he said. “But it’s all in the timing, really.”

And, in 2001, another appearance and, amazingly, another sport. This time it was taekwondo, and two gold medals in a competition at Barnard Castle. His instructor, Mandip Singh Bains, summed it up. “He gets kicked more than anybody else because he’s only got one arm, so he can’t use both to block,” he said.

“But he just gets stuck in.”

With his taekwondo club closed, Darren stopped training. But, with the sport illuminated by the Olympic flame, taekwondo tempts, and he hopes to start again next year.

There’s also, of course, the long-held hope that golf becomes an Olympic sport. “I’d like to make the Paralympics,” says Darren. “That would be my key goal.”

Darren has seen the big time and likes it.

He’s competed in the last two one-armed golf world championships, making the semi-finals, and this year was the talk of the crowd at the Fightmaster Cup in Kentucky – the one-armed equivalent of the Ryder Cup. Europe lost, but Darren won all five of his games.

“It’s a whole different experience, that level,”

he says. “When I went to the US you’re not just competing for yourself, you’re competing for Europe. We had names on our shirts, people with scoreboards following us round.”

If Darren even considered an ego, though, it would be punctured by his mates before inflation.

“My mates take the mick every now and then,” he says. “When I got beat in the semis (of the World Championships) they took the mick out of me. When we go out on the course we’ll take the mick out of each other. If I beat them I say ‘You can’t even beat anyone with one arm’. Then they’ll call me Bandit.”

Darren, in England shirt and trackies, seems a bright, confident lad, a typical 23-year-old, with a special talent for sports. But does his disability ever get him down? Does he ever curse his luck?

“Well football is my main sport,” says Darren, a quick, left-footed midfield player or forward.

“The only thing I wanted to do was football.

I played for school and my teachers said I could go far with it. But I’m finding it hard to get a team – a lot of them don’t let disabled people in the league. I’m trying to find places to play. That’s the thing – I love sport, but in a way it’s put me down too, because some people turn you down because you have a disability.”

And, he says, finding work is hard, particularly when the credit crunch is biting into employment levels. “There are a lot of people who say first ‘What can’t you do?’ instead of ‘Will you be able to do that?’”

Which is where sport, the great leveller comes in. If anyone doubts its power, or relevance, they probably won’t now. “With sport, it’s like a rehab,” says Darren. “You might be down, but you can get out and if you have your best game, it’s such a good feeling, such a good point to the day.”

In golf, Darren’s aims are to lower his handicap – it’s 14, although he now scores between 75 and 78 on Darlington’s par 70 – and to keep hitting hard. “I’m a big hitter but when I go to the World Championships they’re still putting it 30 yards past me,” he says, commendable envy in his voice. “The longest drive this year was 314 yards, the best handicap is four.”

So he’ll keep practising, keep surprising visitors to Darlington Golf Club. “I’ll hit the ball the wrong side of the fairway, then I’ll hit the green next shot,” he says, “which shocks quite a few people.” Eventually, he’d like to teach.

“I’d like to make a future with my sport,” he says. “I’d like to teach, give something back.

Imagine if no one had showed me how to swing a club.”

■ Anyone interested in sponsoring Darren ahead of this year’s one-armed golf world championships should email him on the1ab@hotmail.co.uk