How autistic golfer Steven ‘Spud’ Alderson turned to the fairways to manage depression and prove his bullies wrong.
I didn’t get diagnosed with autism until 2014. I was 34 years old. It would have been nice to be diagnosed a bit earlier in life. I was also diagnosed with severe depression, so I’m on medication for that, but that comes from probably being bullied through my entire school life, not to mention at a couple of golf courses. But I’m in a good place now. People have been told to just let me do my thing.
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I got my first taste of golf when I was 7. I grew up around the Port Willunga-Aldinga Beach area down on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula. It wasn’t until I was 15 years old that I got my first golf handicap. The golf course we went to, I remember getting told I was too young to play. But “Spud” being me or me being “Spud”, I just went out onto the first tee and hit a drive, and then they just shut up and let me go.
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Golf didn’t run in my family. My mum and dad are useless at it. One day, a golf tournament was being broadcast on TV and I just sat on the couch and watched it and said, “That’s what I want to do. That’s what I’m going to do.”
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The sport has been a bit of a saviour for me… Just being able to go outside in the fresh air has done wonders for my mental health. Golf gives me an escape, so I don’t just go hide in my room. But if I’m at home not playing golf, you can bet I’m watching it.
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Greg Norman was the first player I really followed. Then, when Tiger arrived on the scene, I took a liking to him. But I’m a fan of the game in general. I really like Ernie Els and Fred Couples, because they just look like they’re hitting the ball so effortlessly. They don’t ever look like they’re trying to hit the cover off the ball. I can relate to that.
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My strengths out on the course would be my putting, pitching and chipping, because I don’t hit it very far. I can’t hit it out of my own shadow. But playing short, tight courses like Willunga Golf Club, you need to have your wedges dialled in. I’ve worked hard on that with my caddie [Trent Blucher]. Our rule is if we’re in the rough and can’t get to the green, we’ll just chip it out to a strength area of mine and get up and down.
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I first contacted Golf Australia in 2016 about trying to grow golf for people with disabilities. Last year’s Webex event at Willunga was my first event of the year and I was super-stoked to win at my home course. To then go on and win a G4D (Golf For The Disabled) Tour event in Spain was crazy. The days and weeks that followed were ridiculous. I was answering messages on Instagram and Facebook and getting message requests by the day. I remember answering 80 messages one night. I played with a bunch of famous cricketers in a celebrity pro-am and they were more excited to play with me than I was with them, apparently.
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Winning back-to-back G4D Tour victories [Alderson claimed the G4D Series Finale net division title in Dubai in November] was a massive feeling. It’s just great to have invitations to play tournaments. You don’t get invited all the time, so you have got to take your chance. Trent was really good in Dubai. He worked twice as hard as we did in Spain because my head was not in the game the two days we played because of the really hot weather… and the golf course was really, really tough. I’m not complaining, though, because I’ve always wanted to travel and play golf. I thought it would’ve happened earlier than this but I know people peak at different times. I’m hoping I can keep the form going when I’m 50 and, who knows, I might try the over-50s tour.
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I’ve played a lot of great rounds but my most memorable – at club level, at least – would probably be the day I shot the Willunga Golf Club amateur course record. I carded a 64 a few years ago and didn’t even birdie a par 3. We’ve got five par 3s at Willunga but I birdied holes one, two, four and then birdied 10, 11 and 13. And that was it. The rest were boring pars. I ended up winning the day’s competition though, playing off a handicap of 4. I got down to plus-2, but winter hurts me around here, having a bit of arthritis and all sorts in my body. I’m hoping I can get back down to a plus-2 or plus-3 handicap.
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I’ve had the premier ring me and send me a signed letter saying that I’ll be playing in the LIV Golf Adelaide pro-am in February, so that’ll be exciting. I think LIV’s arrival in Adelaide has been really good. Personally, I think it’s poor form by the PGA Tour that those LIV golfers can’t play on the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour, I find, has got a bit boring because people are winning that you don’t know and they don’t tell you their stories, so you don’t know who they are and where they’ve come from.
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People always ask me about the nickname “Spud”. There’s no real backstory to it. All I live on is potato… spuds and hot chips. The only meat I eat is chicken. There’s a chicken shop in O’Halloran Hill, about 30 minutes from where I play at Willunga, that has known me for about 35 years now. I have them on speed dial, and normally order 10 spuds and two chicken wings. They just pile in the spuds – I don’t even think they count anymore. It’s quite funny.
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My advice to anyone with a disability is: try to stay in school for as long as you can so you can study for whatever you want to do in life. If you want to be a sportsperson, just go out and live, try to find your dream. I got bullied out of school, so finding a job has been hard because I don’t have an education. I can’t even do a traineeship with golf because I haven’t passed any academic side that they’d be able to credit me with. I would be able to pass the playing side but not the academic side, unfortunately.
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My message to kids that get bullied like I did is: just do your best to ignore it. I know that sounds simplistic, but I wasn’t the sort of person that ignored a lot of stuff when I was a kid, so I ended up being in trouble for retaliating, and the person that started it never got into trouble. Thankfully, I found golf – and I haven’t looked back.
Photos: Andrew Redington /getty images
